Visser Relishing Rockford Run In Return After Missed Season
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
November 20, 2024
ROCKFORD – The Rockford volleyball team is in the midst of an impressive postseason run, and just two wins away from a Division 1 championship.
Senior Layla Visser is beyond grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it after an injury derailed her junior season.
Visser missed it entirely after having shoulder surgery. She didn’t return to the court until midway through this fall, but has been a major contributor in the team’s success as the Rams enter Thursday’s Division 1 Semifinal against Fenton (30-2) at Battle Creek’s Kellogg Arena.
“It’s amazing to be back,” Visser said. “I love volleyball more now than I ever have.”
Visser started feeling pain in her right shoulder following her sophomore season. Doctors discovered that she had a torn labrum, rotator cuff and biceps tendon.
Being away from the sport she loves took its toll.
“It was a lot harder than I expected it to be, but it really pushed me,” Visser said. “It was really emotionally and mentally hard, unlike anything I’ve ever been through because volleyball is my passion and my identity. So not being able to play or be a part of that was hard.
“All of these girls are really special to me, and I’ve been playing with them for a long time now. To finally be able to be on the court again with them and playing at a high level feels really good and special.”
Rockford junior Liv Hosford is thrilled to have her friend and teammate back on the court, helping the Rams in their pursuit of the program’s first Finals title since 2011.
“It’s definitely huge to have her back, and even when she wasn't playing she was a huge part of our team with her positivity on the bench and keeping the energy up and giving us extra motivation sometimes when we didn't have any,” Hosford said. “She’s been a huge part of our team and our success with her wall of a block, and her hits are becoming so good.”
Rams coach Kelly Delacher said Visser has been a welcome addition to a team abounding with veteran experience and young talent.
“She didn’t play at all last year and the first month of this season, so it was incredible to get her back,” he said. “We converted her to a middle hitter, which she has never played before, but she has been great as far as leadership and blocking and giving us some offense out of the middle.”
Rockford (39-9), which has dropped only two sets during the MHSAA Tournament, swept Traverse City Central 3-0 in a Division 1 Quarterfinal.
A grueling and lengthy third set saw the Rams prevail, 36-34.
“That was the longest single set I’ve been a part of, but they were a very solid team with some scary hitters and our kids came out and were focused from point one,” Delacher said. “We did a good job of exploiting a couple of matchups, and our outside hitter Mallory Wandel had a big night with 27 kills.”
Depth and talent, combined with a tight-knit bond, have been staples for the Rams.
“I knew right from the beginning that we had something special,” Delacher said. “We had a great mix of seniors with some young talented players, and I give a lot of credit to our captains and our seniors for creating a great chemistry and bond where they are not worried about their individual goals. They just want to win and support each other in the process.”
Hosford echoed those sentiments:
“One of the biggest things is our team chemistry,” she said. “I feel like we are a big family, and we’ve clicked from the first practice and we've continued to build that. We just have so much trust in each other, and we are all working toward the same goal.
The Rams, who won the Ottawa-Kent Conference Red title this year, have appeared in the Finals twice since that championship run in 2011. They were Division 1 runners-up in 2018 after a loss to Lake Orion, and Class A runner-up in 2016 after falling to Novi.
“There are very good teams left in Fenton, which has had a great season with only a couple of losses, and Northville and Marian on the other side of the bracket are very good teams,” Delacher said. “It’s going to take us playing our best volleyball, and I believe our kids our starting to believe that. We’ve matched up against four straight ranked opponents, and we’ve played pretty well so I feel like our confidence is pretty high. We feel like we have as good a chance as anybody.”
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for five years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Rockford celebrates its Quarterfinal win over Traverse City Central on Tuesday at Big Rapids High School. (Middle) Layla Visser (1) winds up for a kill attempt with Izzie Delacher setting and Liz Hosford (14) also approaching the net. (Photos by Miles Postema.)
South Lyon's Wesner Turns Full Focus to School Sports, Big Finish to 11-Letter Career
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
January 9, 2026
SOUTH LYON — South Lyon senior Teagen Wesner isn’t hesitant to offer advice to younger athletes on the benefits of playing high school sports.
“It teaches you a lot, it brings you good friends,” Wesner said. “Being on the court and being on a team, it just brings you so much more knowledge you can’t learn in the classroom. I’ve learned so many things through sports, it’s something that’s irreplaceable to me.”
And younger athletes should certainly listen to Wesner, given she is quite an example of someone who has fully embraced all that high school sports have to offer.
When she graduates in a few months, Wesner will have 11 varsity letters, earned as three-sport athlete from the moment she arrived at South Lyon High School.
She has been on the varsity volleyball and ski teams since she was a freshman, and has been a member of South Lyon United’s lacrosse team since she was a sophomore (after playing on the JV lacrosse team as a freshman).
“It made me be a well-rounded athlete,” Wesner said of playing multiple sports. “I’ve gotten thrown into a whole bunch of different positions depending on what the coaches need. Having a background in multiple different sports really has helped my athleticism. I feel like I have matured a little more than others because I’ve been in highly competitive environments.”
Wesner said she has skied since she was 3 years old and played club volleyball since she was in elementary school, but made a decision during her junior year that reflected how much she loves playing high school sports.
Instead of playing club volleyball again after that high school volleyball season ended, Wesner decided to concentrate more on her high school teams.
“I just liked high school sports better,” she said. “Club was a lot of fun, but high school has all the people and everything.”
This past fall, Wesner was a captain of the volleyball team and an all-league performer in the Lakes Valley Conference.
This winter, Wesner is serving as captain of the South Lyon United ski team, as she hopes to build on a junior season where she was all-conference in both slalom and giant slalom.
In the spring, Wesner plans to once again play lacrosse and try and repeat what was an improbable success story last year.
Wesner, who said she stopped playing lacrosse in middle school before picking it back up again during her freshman year, took over as South Lyon United’s goalie in the fourth game of the season after the original starter was lost for the season with a torn ACL.
Wesner had played twice as goalie while in middle school, but was mainly a defender. However, desperate times called for desperate measures, so Wesner took over.
“Our goalie tore her ACL and we really didn’t have anyone else on the team, (to play the position),” Wesner said. “I just did whatever my coach needed. She knew with my background in other sports, I could pick it up quickly.”
Weeks later, Wesner and South Lyon United ended up celebrating its first MHSAA Finals championship with a 6-3 win over Hartland in the Division 1 title game.
“Taking a demanding role under high pressure, Teagan remained positive, composed and team-focused throughout the transition,” South Lyon United girls lacrosse coach Deanna Radcliffe said. “Her willingness to do whatever the team needed, combined with her resilience and steady presence, gave the team confidence during a critical stretch of the season.”
Recovering from losing its starting goalie early in the regular season to winning Division 1 was quite an improbable journey, but South Lyon did it with a stout defense and Wesner adapting so quickly her new position.
“I just kind of learned on the fly and let my instincts take over,” Wesner said. “During the season, I definitely got more training that made me way better. At the start, it was just like, 'Don’t let the ball hit you.'”
This spring, Wesner likely will return to her natural position as a defender with the starting goalie expected to be healed from her injury.
At the moment, Wesner doesn’t plan to play any of her three sports in college other than at an intramural level, which will make her cherish her high school years and all those varsity letters even more.
“I’m probably going to put them in a drawer,” she said. “But I think it’ll be cool to look back on. I’ll definitely glow on it for a couple of days. I think it’s a good accomplishment to something I’ve been working towards all four years of high school.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) South Lyon’s Teagen Wesner races downhill during ski season. (Middle) Wesner (7) shares a laugh with a volleyball teammate. (Below) Wesner warms up in goal during last spring’s lacrosse season. (Photos provided by the Wesner family.)