Cadillac Hopes to Add #1 to Incredible Run

November 17, 2015

By Dennis Chase
Special for Second Half

CADILLAC – The numbers tell the story – 10 consecutive District titles, nine of 10 Regional crowns, three MHSAA Semifinal appearances.

It's been quite a run for coach Michelle Brines and her Cadillac Vikings volleyball program.

Cadillac is in the Elite Eight once again, this time with one of its most well-rounded teams in Brines' 16 years as head coach.

Optimism is high as the Vikings begin this week with their ultimate tournament goal still in play – to reach Saturday’s MHSAA Class B Final, which would be a program first.

The Vikings know it will not be easy. Cadillac faces defending champion North Branch in a Quarterfinal rematch tonight. The Broncos ousted Cadillac 3-0 a year ago.

The Vikings enter the match ranked No. 5 in the latest coaches poll, North Branch No. 8. The Broncos upset No. 2 Mount Morris in the District.

“They’re a good team, but they graduated seven seniors last year,” Brines said of North Branch. “I told the girls, ‘Forget about what it says on their jerseys. This is not the same team that beat us in three last year.’ Yes, they’re good, they have a history, but I like our chances. We just have to go out and perform, play the way we’re capable of playing.”

Brines, who has close to 650 career wins, has an experienced squad  with senior outside hitter Morgan Briggs, junior setter Ali Finch, junior middle hitter Kylie Christensen and sophomore outside hitter Gabby Kapuscinski among the key returnees from last year.

Brines is hoping that experience will pay dividends in helping her players deal with the pressure.

Briggs thinks it will.

 “We hold ourselves to a high standard so pressure is a good thing, in my point of view,” she said.

Briggs, who will play at Lake Erie College next season, leads the team in kills and also plays the middle on serve-receive. It’s her passing in that role that often starts the offense.

Finch, meanwhile, is the main distributor, although she can put it down, too.

“She jumps sets,” Brines said. “She’s 6-foot and really attacks the ball. The defenders are never sure if she's going up to hit or set – and where she’s setting to.”

Christensen is second to Briggs in kills.

Seniors Gabby Hoaglund (middle hitter), Hanna Liptak (libero), Nicole Kleinsorge (defensive specialist) and Megan Alworden (defensive specialist) and junior Liz Pyles (right side hitter) round out the rotation.

The Vikings, who are 45-4, shared the Big North Conference title with Traverse City West, which competes in the Class A Quarterfinals tonight. The two teams split matches during the season. Cadillac’s only other losses are to Grand Rapids Christian, another Class A quarterfinalist, Temperance-Bedford and Mount Morris.

“We played more tournaments downstate, played some harder teams, and I think we made a name (statewide) for ourselves,” Briggs said.

Cadillac already had that name recognition in the north. It's been fostered by years of success with the tradition carried on by this year's team.

In its last three matches, Cadillac beat Kingsley in the District Final and swept Big Rapids and Houghton in the Regional.

"They play really good defense,” Kingsley coach Dave Hall said. “And they don't make mistakes, they don’t beat themselves. They put a ton of pressure on you by just keeping the ball in play. They keep coming at you and don't give you points.

“I don't think anyone scored more than 13 on them in the Regional,” he added. “I felt pretty good we got to 22 and 15 in two of the games.”

Brines credits several factors for Cadillac’s continued success – introducing girls to volleyball as early as second grade, continuity in the coaching staff, and dedicated players who put the work in during the offseason.

“I’m fortunate that my players are willing to put extra time in during the summer because they play other sports, too,” she said. “I try to be realistic because I don't want to dominate their time. We have a lot of two- and three-sport athletes.”

Playing multiple sports keeps some of the girls out of club volleyball during the offseason, but Brines is fine with it.

“Our school needs our kids (to play multiple sports),” she said. “I’m a firm believer in that. I feel that every sport they play makes them better on my team, and playing on my team makes them better in other sports.”

Repeated success in volleyball helps generate enthusiasm for the program throughout the school – even at the elementary level, where high school players coach and mentor girls in a winter program for grades 2-6.

“We used to start (girls) in fourth grade,” Brines said. “But they play basketball that young (second and third grade) so why not volleyball? We like to get them introduced to it because it's not (a sport) that most kids play outside at home like basketball.”

Briggs is one of those players who became hooked on the sport early. Then again, there were family ties. Her older sister, Taylor, played. Taylor went on to become a floor captain and all-state player, graduating in 2012. Now Morgan is following in her footsteps.

There’s one thing Morgan Briggs is hoping to change, though. Taylor’s last game was a Quarterfinal loss to eventual Class B champion Fruitport in 2011. Morgan would like to extend her senior season a little longer than that.

“We always focus on one game at a time – we don't look (past) anybody – but our goal is to be in the Final Four and make it to Saturday,” she said.

If it doesn’t happen, however, Briggs said she feels fortunate to be part of this team.

“No matter if we win or lose, I have the best girls I could ask for (as teammates),” she said. “They have the same mentality to win as I do. I'm really lucky that I can go through this playing next to my best friends.”

Dennis Chase worked 32 years as a sportswriter at the Traverse City Record-Eagle, including as sports editor from 2000-14. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Kylie Christensen (10) and Morgan Briggs put up a block during a match this season. (Middle) Ali Finch (5) sets as Christensen prepares to hit. (Photos by Susan Baker.) 

Forest Area's Stremlow Never Far from Serving School Sports Community

By Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com

February 4, 2022

He hasn’t met a sport he can’t coach. And, he probably hasn’t turned down a team he’s met – yet.

Many of the coaching jobs he’s taken were actually offered to him by him.

Whenever he’s started a new sport, he’s sought mentors in the form of successful veteran coaches. But make no mistake, if they made a movie in Northern Michigan called “The Mentor” – this Hall of Fame coach would be the star of the show.

He’s technically retired today. The teams he coaches don’t get TV cameras and other media present. He’s a middle school track and volleyball coach for Fife Lake Forest Area Community Schools.

He’s perhaps most well-known as the past volleyball coach at Forest Area. Don’t be surprised if you hear of graduated athletes – and current student-athletes – from Glen Lake, Manton, Kingsley and even McBain Northern Michigan Christian happily call him “Coach.”

Name the coach? Ron Stremlow. He’s a retired physical education teacher, athletic director and coach. He came out of retirement to return as the part-time athletic director for Forest Area, a district he served 32 years as a teacher.

He’s also coaching a couple of middle school sports, just like he did when he was working full-time. Athletic directors often need to put themselves in tough-to-fill coaching slots.

“Ron Stremlow has been a tremendous ambassador of high school sports in Northern Michigan,” said Dave Jackson, athletic director of Frankfort-Alberta Schools. “The number of coaches, parents and athletes Ron has encouraged during his years of service are too many to count.

“He is an athletic administrator that has always been about service and what (he) can do to help.”

Help is exactly what he did once upon a time for then-new volleyball coach at McBain Northern Michigan Christian, Diane Eisenga. The call for help came from Eisenga’s players.

Today, Eisenga is an athletic assistant for the Comets and mother of five boys, her youngest still attending NMC. Like Stremlow, she has built a very successful program. Back then, she was just getting started, pregnant and a mother of two children, and unable to coach her team during a Ferris State University tournament that Stremlow had planned to scout with longtime friend and Kingsley 1,000-win volleyball coach Dave Hall.  

Stremlow actually was planning to watch NMC at the tournament, anticipating the Comets would be a potential roadblock to a District title that upcoming season. (He was right: Forest Area would end up losing to NMC in a District Final as the Comets reached the Class D Quarterfinals.)

Fife Lake Forest Area athleticsWhat Stremlow did not anticipate was being asked by the Comets players to step in and coach them at the Ferris tourney. Stremlow was told Eisenga was not feeling well enough to guide the team at that moment.

Stremlow did not hesitate to help. He had previously leant his wisdom to the former Dordt University (Iowa) athlete with tryouts, cutting decisions and NMC’s summer camp.

“I had played in high school and college, but I was green,” Eisenga acknowledged. “He was a good mentor.”

She recalls her players asking for Stremlow’s help.

“I got real light-headed and wasn’t feeling well,” she said. “Because the girls had known him, he took over for me that day.”

It wasn’t a surprise for Eisenga to witness Stremlow’s contribution to her team’s success that year.

“I always saw him as more of a mentor and more of a friend (than an opposing coach),” Eisenga said.  “He was happy with anyone’s success.

“He was always happy for any team that played well,” she continued. “Of course, he always wanted his own to win. … He was always respectful, and you never saw him cross the line.”

Stremlow, who jokes about maybe not having the most wins among hall of fame volleyball coaches while claiming the most losses amongst the elite group (he still ranks 17th  in MHSAA history with 944 volleyball wins despite retiring from the Forest Area varsity after the 2018 season), spends his days taking care of Forest Area boys and girls basketball, completive cheer and the Warriors co-ed wresting teams. Many a night he does whatever it takes to run an event, including running the scoreboard for basketball.

In the fall, Forest Area offers 8-player football, cross country and volleyball. He’s in the midst of finalizing spring softball, track and baseball.

Basketball is perhaps his favorite sport, but he loves the change of seasons.

“Once that season’s up, I am ready to rock and roll and get into another,” Stremlow noted.

Giving back is what keeps the 62-year-old Stremlow going. He sees at least three years of involvement ahead.

“A lot of kids do not get good role models or good coaches. And I thought if I can help kids out, I am going to,” Stremlow said.

Today Stremlow wears many school colors, especially the Warriors’ forest green. You also often can find him in Kingsley orange, or perhaps it is actually the Manton orange. 

You will definitely find him in his favorite, maize and blue. His forest green should never be confused with the Michigan State green. The Wolverines became the favorite of the Central Michigan grad when he got into the Big House as a high school student with a $2 ticket to watch Michigan take on Navy.

“I have green, but it is not the Michigan State green,” Stremlow said he often jokes with fans of the Spartans and Warriors.

Stremlow uses all his team colors as he follows another passion, photography. He got a camera for college graduation, and student-athletes all over Northern Michigan have benefited.

“There are thousands of former players from Forest Area and Kingsley that can point to pictures in their homes that Ron has taken of them playing sports,” Jackson said. “These pictures are not just cute shots, but pictures that were used to teach form and techniques.”

Stremlow takes satisfaction from capturing sports on film, rather digitally, as he does today.

“I take a lot of pictures – I‘ve always liked it,” he said. “That’s the best gift you can give any kid and parents – just getting pictures.

“It really helps, plus I like doing it.”

Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Fife Lake Forest Area athletic director Ron Stremlow talks with official Chuck Bott (right) before a basketball game against Indian River Inland Lakes this season. (Middle) Stremlow shows support for his favorite college team while prepping before a game against Johannesburg-Lewiston. (Top photo by Tom Spencer; middle photo by Andrew Fish/Gaylord Herald-Times.)