Decade After Title Trips, 'Coach K' Just as Driven to Coach Up Grand Haven Contenders
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
February 1, 2023
Katie Kowalczyk-Fulmer has experienced unforgettable highs and nightmarish lows during her 25 years as the girls basketball coach at Grand Haven.
It’s now the 10-year anniversary of an amazing three-year stretch from 2011 to 2013, when “Coach K” guided the Buccaneers to a combined 81-2 record, three consecutive berths in the Class A Semifinals and back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013.
The lows are harder to pick out, but the way Grand Haven lost at Hudsonville on Jan. 24 certainly qualifies.
The Bucs led 46-44 with time running out, when Haven was called for a shooting foul with one-tenth of a second remaining on a desperation half-court shot attempt. Hudsonville senior Maddie Peroelje then made all three free throws to pull out an improbable 47-46 win.
“That one was brutal,” said Kowalczyk-Fulmer, who was feeling much better Tuesday, one week later, after Haven downed visiting Zeeland West 44-33 for its third-straight victory.
“I love all of it, the great teams and big wins, but also the struggles and trying to stay strong and figure things out.”
Kowalczyk-Fulmer, 52, might be in the midst of the best coaching job in her 31-year career, guiding a team with no returning starters to a 10-4 start, including an impressive 5-2 record after the first rotation in the rugged Ottawa-Kent Conference Red.
She is doing it with a team that only goes about six or seven deep, has no one in that group taller than 6-foot and lost its starting point guard, junior Abbey Klumpel, to a season-ending knee injury during the summer.
How is she doing it?
“She teaches a team game of basketball,” explained ninth-year Grand Haven athletic director Scott Robertson, who has been involved in high school sports for 32 years. “She is more invested in her sport, her kids, her program than anyone I have ever seen.”
The defensive leader Tuesday was gritty senior guard Grace Harrison, who held Zeeland West’s top perimeter threat scoreless.
On offense, junior forward Emerson Berndt turned in a double-double with 23 points and 10 rebounds. She scored 14 of those points in the second half to help the Bucs put the game away.
Berndt had the hot hand Tuesday, but in other games this season sophomore guard Gillian Sorrelle or junior forward Maddie Schopf have carried the team from outside. The inside leader is 5-11 senior center Heidi Berkey, who held her own against ZW’s 6-4 senior center Kara Bartels.
Berndt, who leads the Bucs with 12 points and five rebounds per game, said this team has a special bond with its head coach.
“Coach has established such a close relationship with all of us, and she knows how to get us going,” said Berndt, who is one of the five Haven starters who all average at least six points per game. “She’s always joking around, but getting after it at the same time.”
Haven, which is a surprising second in the O-K Red at the halfway point, starts the second half of the slate Friday at first-place and No. 3-ranked Rockford (13-1).
Kowalczyk-Fulmer, a standout player at Caledonia and then Hope College, began her coaching career at the age of 21 when she was still a senior at Hope – coaching the seventh-grade girls team at Caledonia.
She then worked five years at Hastings, including the final three as girls varsity head coach, before taking the job as a physical education teacher and varsity girls basketball coach at Grand Haven in 1997.
Kowalczyk-Fulmer and her husband, Paul, have one son, Drew, a 12-year-old sixth grader at Grand Haven who was just a toddler when the Buccaneers were enjoying their magical three-year run a decade ago.
Haven made its presence known on a statewide level in 2011, when 6-5 sophomore Abby Cole led the Bucs to a 26-1 record, with the only loss coming by a single point to Detroit Renaissance, 39-38, in a Class A Semifinal at Michigan State’s Breslin Center.
The Bucs took the final step in 2012, erasing an 18-point, third-quarter deficit as senior guard Shar’Rae Davis drove the length of the court for the game-winning layup with nine seconds remaining in a 54-53 victory over Grosse Pointe South. Haven finished 27-1, with its only loss coming early in the season against O-K Red rival East Kentwood.
GH did it again in 2013 with a perfect 28-0 record, which might have been the most impressive because the only returning starter was Cole, who would go on to an all-Big Ten volleyball career at Michigan. The Bucs committed a staggering 32 turnovers, but made up for it with 22-of-29 shooting (76 percent), in a 60-54 overtime victory over, once again, Grosse Pointe South.
“Those are the glory days, and here we are 10 years later and you realize just how special it was,” said Kowalczyk-Fulmer, who has also coached track at Grand Haven. “We always stayed humble and worked hard.
“Obviously, having someone like Abby Cole as the last line of defense is something special. But she had such great character and leadership, as well. I can still see her out there when things weren’t going well, and she would wrap her long arms around her teammates and tell them it was going to be OK. And it was.”
Kowalczyk-Fulmer has amassed 391 victories as a head coach, with six O-K Red titles, eight District and four Regional championships – along with the two Class A Finals wins.
“Those trophies are getting hard to come by – I’m thinking about buying one on eBay,” said Coach K, displaying the quick wit that her fellow coaches, referees and players know very well.
She works hard, but also has plenty of fun and laughs along the way, which is why she doesn’t plan on retiring any time soon – even though this school year marks her 30th year of teaching.
As Kowalczyk-Fulmer was finishing up her media obligations after the Zeeland West victory, her son – a sports junkie who has literally grown up in the Grand Haven bleachers and locker rooms – sat waiting in the hallway.
“I plan to be here until he graduates,” she said with a nod to her only child. “I love it. It’s my passion, and I’m really lucky. Grand Haven is such a great place to live and coach.
“I’m not ready to stop.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Grand Haven girls basketball coach Katie Kowalczyk-Fulmer talks things over with her team during a game earlier this decade. (Middle) Kowalczyk-Fulmer and son Drew accept the Class A championship trophy after the Bucs’ second-straight title win in 2013. (Top photo courtesy of the Local Sports Journal.)
Rockford Turns Breslin Orange On Way to Earning Championship Day Debut
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
March 17, 2023
EAST LANSING – Even on St. Patrick’s Day, seemingly the entire town of Rockford managed to turn the normally green Breslin Center into a sea of orange for Friday’s second Division 1 Semifinal at Breslin Center.
Both coaches admitted that the raucous Rockford crowd – almost all wearing orange T-shirts with a Rams logo on the front and filling about half of the lower bowl – had a huge impact on the game, particularly the start, as the Rams bolted to a 24-7 lead after the first quarter.
“How about those Rockford fans?” said sixth-year Rams coach Brad Wilson, before he even introduced his players at the postgame press conference. “When you look out there and see a sea of orange, it’s unbelievable.”
Buoyed by that crowd and equally unbelievable shooting, Rockford blitzed Detroit Renaissance, 65-42, to advance to the Division 1 championship game for the first time in school history.
Rockford, 27-1 and winners of the Ottawa-Kent Conference Red, will face reigning champion West Bloomfield in Saturday’s 12:15 p.m. title game.
The game will be a rematch of last year’s epic Semifinal, where West Bloomfield prevailed, 66-63, before knocking off Hartland the next day for the title.
The Rams would love to get off to the type of start they had on Friday.
Rockford made 11-of-13 field goals (84.6 percent) in the first quarter, including 2-of-3 from 3-point range, getting the huge crowd involved early.
“We didn’t come out scared at all,” said Rockford junior sharpshooter Grace Lyons, noting it was helpful that her team played at the Breslin last year. “We came out ready to play from the get-go, and now we want to finish this thing.”
Lyons led all scorers with 23 points, making 3-of-6 from 3-point range, while senior Michigan Tech commit Alyssa Wypych scored 13 points with a game-high seven rebounds and her sophomore sister, Anna Wypych, added 12 points.
The Rams cooled off slightly in the second quarter, but still finished the half 15-of-21 from the floor (71.4 percent), and led 39-26.
Renaissance (23-2), which was seeking its first title since capturing the Class B championship in 2005, came out of halftime fired up and used an 8-0 run to trim the lead to just five points.
“We went back to our identity in the third quarter,” said Renaissance junior guard Christian Sanders, who led her team with 17 points. “Had we done that sooner, it may have been a different story.”
The key point of the game occurred right after the Phoenix made their run, and Wilson called a timeout to calm his team down.
Rockford responded with a 9-0 run of its own – using a pair of two-point baskets by Lyons, a bucket by Anna Wypych and a key 3-pointer off the bench from senior Madee Whitford – to push the lead back to 14 points.
The Phoenix, a young team with only three seniors, were never able to threaten the rest of the game.
“You have to give Rockford credit,” said first-year Renaissance coach Dashaun Wood. “They had a big fan base, and I think they fed off of that. We finally got back to who we normally are there in the third quarter, but sometimes when you dig a hole that deep, you burn all your energy just coming back.”
Amyah Espanol, one of two senior starters for the Phoenix, scored 13 points and junior Makayla Johnson added nine.
Rockford finished the game with 54 percent shooting (compared to 29.5 percent for Renaissance) and held a decisive 33-20 rebounding edge.
The Rams will make the one-hour drive home, which is just north of Grand Rapids, and Wilson said he and his assistant coaches will likely stay up all night preparing for West Bloomfield.
“No sleep ’til Breslin, that’s a real thing,” Wilson said with a grin. “We just need to stick to our brand of basketball. West Bloomfield is very good, but we’re really good, too, and I think we’re going to come out and show that we belong to be there.”
PHOTOS (Top) Rockford’s Sienna Wolfe (33) brings the ball upcourt during Friday’s Semifinal win over Renaissance. (Middle) Anna Wypych (2) makes a move toward the basket around a pick from teammate Grace Lyons.