Lowell Prepared for 1st Trip to Final Week

November 18, 2019

By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half

LOWELL – The Lowell volleyball team has earned a trip to the season’s final week for the first time.

A beefed-up regular-season schedule helped pave the way toward school history – last week’s program-first Regional title and a spot in Tuesday’s Division 1 Quarterfinal at Jenison against No. 3 Mattawan.

Second-year Lowell coach Jordan Drake said strengthening the schedule was a focal point after bowing out in the District Final against eventual Division 1 runner-up Rockford last season.   

“That was something I looked at with my coaching staff after losing to Rockford last season,” Drake said. “What can we change in order to not be in this situation again next year? I talked with my athletic director, and I said to put us in the hardest tournaments that we could.”

The No. 2-ranked Red Arrows haven’t shied away from playing against, and beating, the top teams in the state en route to a stellar 53-3 record. Lowell has wins over seven more of the top 10 in the final Division 1 coaches poll, plus the top two ranked teams in Division 2 and No. 1 team in Division 3. The Red Arrows early this season handed Division 1 No. 1 Farmington Hills Mercy its only loss (although, it should be noted, Mercy was playing without senior hitter Jess Mruzik, who was in Egypt with the U.S. U-18 national team and was back when Mercy won a rematch with Lowell last month).

“I knew we had a good team last year, but we just weren’t battle-tested,” said Drake, whose team also won the first conference title in school history last season.

“Playing Mercy, Grand Rapids Christian, Lake Orion, Hudsonville, Lakewood and Schoolcraft that are championship-contending teams, those are the conversations that you want to be in and the matches you want to be in throughout the whole season so when you get to this point you feel like you’ve been there before. I think it’s been a huge difference-maker for our kids.”

Senior middle hitter Meghan Meyer, who’s recorded 438 kills and 74 blocks, said the improved quality of their schedule has paid dividends.

“Coach put us in tournaments where we could be exposed to those good teams more so we would be experienced and ready for when it came to moments like this,” she said. “That really showed us what we’re capable of doing.”

Lowell defeated No. 4 Hudsonville 3-1 in the Regional Final. It was a gratifying win that accomplished a season-long goal, while also avenging two of the Red Arrows' losses this fall.

“The girls were ecstatic, and winning Regionals was obviously one of the goals we had set out for ourselves this season,” Drake said. “It’s right where we want to be, and we’re taking this thing one game at a time and we’re looking forward to a great competition with Mattawan. It’s going to be another tough battle like the road we’ve had. It’s been just a grind.”  

Junior outside hitter Jenna Reitsma, who leads the team with 795 kills to go along with 379 digs and 82 aces, was thrilled to pull off another program first.

“We were all just really excited, and we worked really hard to get here,” Reitsma said. “We wanted to get past that milestone, especially since our school hadn’t done it before, so it was exciting to make history and work hard together to get that win.”

The Red Arrows returned eight players this fall from a year ago. However, experience alone wasn’t going to be enough to help the team meet heightened expectations.

The intangibles also needed to be developed.

“I definitely thought we could reach this level, but it was a matter of them wanting to put the work in,” Drake said. “There was a lot of things we still had to get better at from last year, and that included taking game by game and growing from our losses against tough teams.”

Still, the five-set loss to Rockford that ended their 2018 season provided perfect motivation.

“I know when we were playing different teams we kept that loss in the back of our minds,” Meyer said. “We used that as willpower to push through. It was hard losing to them, and we remembered that. We pushed ourselves harder.”

Other key contributors for the Red Arrows include junior setter Sophie Powell (1,446 assists) and junior libero Emma Hall (476 digs).

 “We have never been this far in Lowell history, but we’re just going to work our hardest,” Meyer said. “It’s going to be a good game, and I believe we’re ready.”

Dean Holzwarth covered primarily high school sports for the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years and more recently served as sports editor of the Ionia Sentinel and as a sports photojournalist for WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Lowell hitters await the serve during the St. Johns Invitational on Oct. 5, where the Red Arrows went 6-0. (Middle) Meghan Meyer (5) loads up for a kill attempt. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)

Future in Hand, Hudson Ace Aiming High

August 30, 2019

By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half

HUDSON – Callie Bauer likes to make pros and cons lists.

When the Hudson High School athlete began making a list of whether she should commit to Western Kentucky University on a volleyball scholarship offer, she couldn’t find any cons.

“There are literally no cons for Western,” she said. “It checks off all the boxes. There’s no place I’d rather be going. … It was the only place that gave me intense butterflies.”

Bauer is only a junior, so Western Kentucky will have to wait on her volleyball skills. For now, they are on display in southeast Michigan and the Lenawee County Athletic Association. And, those skills keep getting better. As a sophomore, she was a unanimous all-LCAA first-team selection, selected as the Lenawee County Player of the Year and made the Michigan Interscholastic Volleyball Coaches Association’s Division 3 first-team all-state squad.

For the Tigers last season, Bauer had 712 kills and hit .396 on 1,353 attempts. She also had 446 digs and 415 assists. For Hudson, she’s known as a powerful outside hitter. In college, the 5-foot-11 Bauer expects to transition to setter.

“It’s sort of funny that around here people know her for hitting, but she’s going to college as a setter,” said her mother, Tricia Bauer. “Who knows? Maybe when she gets to Western Kentucky, they’ll see her as a hitter.”

Her mother, who played on Hanover-Horton’s Class C championship team in 1989, was Callie’s first volleyball coach. Callie started at the YMCA in Adrian as an 8-year-old.

“My mom definitely spurred it in me,” she said. “I think I just had a knack for it.”

As she improved in volleyball, so did her playing opportunities. She joined a Toledo, Ohio, club program for the offseason and eventually began playing with Impact Volleyball Club out of Fort Wayne, Ind. It takes nearly two hours to get to Fort Wayne for practice three nights a week, but it’s been a great experience, Bauer said.

“It’s pretty far to drive,” she said. “But, it’s the coaches, honestly. It’s a small club, just two teams. Everyone drives that far to be a part of it. I’m not the only one. The girls there are so good.”

Most of the drives from Hudson to Fort Wayne are with her mother. Last season Bauer also played basketball in the winter, which made for some hectic nights. After school, she’d go to basketball practice, then jump in the car and head to Fort Wayne for volleyball. On most of those nights, she’d get home after 11:30 p.m., shower and start all over the next day.

Club volleyball also has produced a lot of family time for the Bauers. This past club season, the family tagged along on trips to Chicago, Louisville, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Florida.

“It’s a great time to be together,” said her father, Jim Bauer. “We just get all packed in the car and drive. It’s a lot of good family time. You look forward to it.”

Jim Bauer played basketball at Hillsdale College before jumping right into coaching. Between his years at Pittsford and Morenci, he accumulated more than 200 wins. His 2014-15 Morenci team made it to the Breslin Center and played for the Class D championship. He stepped away from coaching basketball a couple of years ago to be sure he didn’t miss out on watching Callie play.

Being brought up in a house with two coaches has been a good experience, Callie said.

“When I first started, they would get on me more,” she said. “Now they are just supporters. I get my competitiveness from them. But, I’m hard enough on myself. I’m my own worst critic. They don’t need to be hard on me.”

It’s hard to find too much fault in Bauer’s game. This month she was named to an elite preseason All-American volleyball list.

“I was super happy about it and proud of it, but I kind of put it in the back of my mind,” she said.

Her dad said seeing her name on that list was special.

“I don’t think she realizes the magnitude of being on an ‘All-American’ list,” he said. “When I was a player, I couldn’t dream of making an All-American list. It’s amazing, really.”

Bauer isn’t worried about burning out of volleyball even though she plays year-round. When she feels herself getting to that point, she knows what to do.

“This past summer I had one of those experiences,” she said. “I was at a volleyball camp, where you eat and sleep volleyball the whole seven days. It was a lot. … When I get to that point, I take a step back and I don’t go into the gym for a week. I’ll go biking or painting or just do something else. I spend a lot of time doing volleyball, so I have to be careful.

“People ask me what I like to do in my free time, and I say, ‘free time?’”

Being committed to Western Kentucky – the second-winningest Division I program in the nation over the last 10 years – has taken some stress off Bauer’s shoulders.

“Now that I’m committed, club volleyball is less stressful for me. When you go to the tournaments, you see the college coaches on the sidelines and you think, ‘Oh boy, I hope they like me.’ Now that I have that secured and everything, I just play.

“I have a lot of work to do before I get there. I’m not going to step back. I’m probably going to get into the gym more now that I am committed. It’s a whole different mentality. It’s not so much just doing it for my high school team or club team or anything. I have something I can look to on the horizon. Two years from now I’m going to be playing against college teams. I’ve got to get ready. It’s another layer of motivation.”

Hudson is coming off a 38-win season but is younger this fall. As a two-year starter already, Bauer will be looked to by Tigers coach Shelly Hoard to be more of a leader.

“She’s continued to improve her game,” Hoard said. “She is definitely bringing a lot more leadership this year. She’s a great team member. Her whole understanding of the game, people’s roles and people’s capabilities and the opponent is better.

“She’s the real deal.”

Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Hudson’s Callie Bauer, one of the state’s top juniors, fires a serve. (Middle) Bauer sets for a teammate during a match against Dundee. (Top photo by Matt Sisoler; middle courtesy of the Bauer family.)