Dakota Hammers Home First MHSAA Title
November 17, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
BATTLE CREEK – On one side of Saturday’s Class A Volleyball Final stood Temperance Bedford, with three MHSAA championships and led by the second-winningest coach in national high school volleyball history.
On the other sideline, Macomb Dakota prepared for its first championship game since the school opened in 1996, when most of the Cougars were just learning to walk.
That imbalance didn't end up deciding much on this day, but was certainly something Dakota considered before making its own history with a 25-22, 25-21, 26-24 win over the Kicking Mules.
It was truly a milestone run for the Cougars, who didn't give up a set during the entire tournament.
“We’d never played Bedford before. We'd never played (Semifinal opponent) Northville before. So I think it showed so much adaption for our team and so much depth that we could come in barely knowing anything about their teams, with 10 minutes of scouting video, and we can take them down in three,” Dakota junior hitter Carli Snyder said.
“It’s ideal for that to happen, but it doesn’t happen very often. Great teams drop games because they play badly, but we didn’t (through the tournament) because we kept playing tough the entire time. It’s incredible.”
Seemingly everyone in Battle Creek knew Snyder would be on the attack.
But that hasn’t helped opponents the University of Florida-bound standout all season. And it didn’t make much difference at Kellogg Arena.
Snyder, in just three sets, had 31 kills – third-most in an MHSAA Final since the beginning of the rally scoring era in 2004-05.
Bedford had survived the Semifinal against Grand Haven despite 20 kills by Miss Volleyball runner-up Abby Cole. But Snyder was unstoppable when it counted most.
She killed the final two points of the first game and the final point of the second. With Dakota trailing by three in the third, Snyder had three straight kills to make it 14-14. Her final attempt of the day was dug – but Bedford’s return went wide down the right side.
“We just had to adjust to her and learn from her and get better,” Bedford sophomore middle Nicole Rightnowar said. “She hit where we weren’t, and it was really hard to block her.”
The Cougars have learned a lot in short time. Only three seasons ago, Dakota finished 19-27-3 in coach Tracie Ferguson’s second year.
But the former Clinton Township Chippewa Valley standout (who later played at Wayne State) led the Cougars to a near reverse of that record in 2010 before guiding them to the first of two straight Regional titles last fall.
Dakota entered the District this season ranked No. 3 and finished 59-5.
“When I played in high school, it was Bedford and Jodi (Manore) was still coaching. And honestly, coming into tonight, I knew she was the coach and knew they had a great team, a very technical team … and I gave the girls that input that, ‘Hey, they know how to play volleyball,’” Ferguson said. “Bedford is a big volleyball school. But at the same time, we’ve come a long way. What we’ve accomplished and built on, we were right there with them.”
Bedford’s run was equally exceptional considering that although the Kicking Mules were ranked as high as No. 6 this fall, they entered the tournament an honorable mention.
Bedford finished 65-13-3, with Manore now 1,679-283-48 over an incredible 28-year career – and with four of Saturday’s starters set to come back next season.
“If you look back and ask a lot of the teams we played this year if we were going to be state runners-up, I don’t think too many would’ve picked us,” Manore said. “We came up a little short once we got here, but we beat two really good teams to get to the Finals in Mercy and Grand Haven. I think we came up against not only a team with the best player we’ve played all year, but her supporting cast stepped up I think a lot bigger than we saw (Friday).
“Give her 31 (kills). But there were some other kids there that had quite a few, and that was our problem.”
Dakota junior setter Megan Manuerski had 43 assists, good to tie for 13th on the MHSAA Finals record list. Snyder also had 14 digs and senior outside hitter Megan Downey had 19.
Sophomore outside hitter Kayla Gwozdz had 14 kills to lead Bedford and Rightnowar had 10. Junior setter MacKenzie Andrews had 37 assists and senior libero Ellen Hays had 18 digs. Senior Lexie Curtis added 10.
PHOTOS: (Top) Macomb Dakota junior Carli Snyder prepares to unload on a set during Saturday's Class A Final. (Middle) Temperance Bedford's Nicole Rightnowar puts down one of her 11 kills.
Beaverton Volleyball Makes History Twice
November 10, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Beaverton’s dream volleyball season ended Thursday with a Class C Regional Final loss to Shelby.
But the Beavers never will forget how they fulfilled aspirations and inspired future generations by winning multiple first-time championships this fall.
The MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” for October clinched its first league and District championships in program history, earning a banner-sized place on the gym wall alongside a number of Beaverton programs that have had success over the decades.
The Beavers claimed the Jack Pine Conference title during the final week of October with a 13-1 league record and by two victories over runner-up Houghton Lake. They then hosted and won their Class C District, sweeping both matches of the tournament including the final against Coleman on Nov. 2.
“We really wanted to win that banner. We really tried to win that banner. We hoped we’d win it,” Beaverton coach Scott Evans said. “Now we’ll be more hungry for it, and now that we’ve been there we’ll be more confident.
“When I first came here, the team I had had a lot of talent. But we would go to tournaments and not win a set. I’d say, ‘How did we not win a set? We’re better than some of these teams.’ What we realized is they didn’t know how to win, didn’t know they deserved to win. Once we tasted winning, we didn’t need to teach it anymore. We’ve tasted winning a conference, winning a District, and we can definitely do it again.”
Evans finished his ninth season leading the program, and surely the Beavers have come a long way – when they won 12 matches his first season, he was told that was the program record for wins.
This fall, Beaverton finished 35-11 for its second-most victories behind a 38-12 run a few seasons ago – but with this one against a more competitive slate of opponents. The Beavers won tournament matches early against Rogers City (still alive in Class D) and Muskegon Catholic Central (which lost Thursday) and took competitive losses to Corunna (still alive in Class B) and Saginaw Swan Valley (which lost to Corunna during their Regional).
“I just realized that even when we lost to these good teams, there was no let up, no quit,” Evans said. “A lot of times when you play ranked teams above you, you’re just in line – this is just happening (to us) – and this team didn’t have that. They’d just fight, no matter what the score was. We could be down a set and they’d fight. We could be down 10 points and they’d fight. And if teams let up on us, we could come back and get them.”
Beaverton had finished second in the Jack Pine three times under Evans and third twice, including last fall. The Beavers also had made District Finals twice during his tenure, most recently in 2013.
There definitely were expectations this fall. Three years ago the team had no seniors, forcing Evans to bring up sophomores who were talented enough to play but could’ve also benefitted from more time on the junior varsity.
That said, he’d noticed in the past a big jump in players’ understanding of the team’s system after their second seasons on varsity – a good sign with this the third for those seniors who came up as sophomores. Seniors this fall filled all but one starting spot.
Left-side hitter Ali Aldrich led the Beavers in kills for the second straight season, this fall with 461 to top a balanced attack that included four on the outside capable of killing points plus two middles who often were forgotten by defenses because of that outside attack. Another senior hitter – Reiss Faber – also spent half her time setting the offense, and senior libero Dallas Longstreth set season (803) and career (1,467) records for digs in keying the defense.
Evans doesn’t expect another eternity to pass before Beaverton earns more hardware. Two freshmen came up this season and made big contributions – Molly Gerow was the second-leading hitter with 295 kills, and Taylor Inscho handled setting when Faber was not.
Having those freshmen as part of this run was by design. Evans preaches for his players to hand down a legacy and tries to get younger players on the roster to soak up some of that experience.
The legacy these seniors are leaving behind just happens to include a couple of championships.
“Our gym doesn’t have a volleyball banner, and we always talk about let’s be the team that puts them up,” Evans said. “Our goal is always that, but it’s not our focus – we focus on what we do, the things we can control, who we are playing, and doing our jobs. (But) they’re excited. This team has had energy all year. I’m still playing videos over and over of our last points when we win, when we won the conference, when we won the District. Just the excitement level of the players and fans, it is just fun to watch. It was just contagious this year, the excitement and emotion they put into the game.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2017-18
September: Shepherd girls golf - Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Beaverton poses with its Jack Pine Conference championship trophy Oct. 25 to celebrate its first league title. (Middle) Senior Reiss Faber serves during a match this fall. (Top photo by Stephanie Johnston, middle photo by Bob Frei.)