Mruzik Set for Season of Opportunities
August 15, 2019
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
FARMINGTON HILLS – Like a lot of seniors, Jess Mruzik of Farmington Hills Mercy will enjoy a lot of perks that come with the final year of high school.
The first such perk will be that she will get to miss almost three weeks from late August to mid-September.
A member of the United States Under-18 Girls Youth National volleyball team, Mruzik and the rest of the U.S. squad will be heading to Egypt from Sept. 5-14 to compete at the World Championships.
Mruzik actually will head first to Anaheim, Calif., on Aug. 28 for a couple of days of training before the team flies over to Cairo.
But don’t worry, there will still be a way for her to keep up with what’s going on in her classrooms at Mercy.
“A lot of our stuff for where we turn in our homework, that’s all online,” she said. “So it should be pretty easy for me to keep up.”
But if Mruzik has her way and achieves all that she wants, getting to represent her country and go for a gold medal won’t be the only perk she’ll enjoy over the coming months.
There are rightfully a lot of expectations for Mercy on the volleyball court, since the Marlins return nine players from last year’s team that finished 52-3 and reached the Division 1 Semifinals before falling to eventual champion Lake Orion.
Leading the way will be Mruzik, who is almost like having nine returning players all in one.
“Obviously the national team will be fun playing with girls all across the country, but I’m really excited for this high school season,” Mruzik said. “Everybody is so much better. We are all super hungry this year.”
Having the wondrously talented Mruzik already is a boon for Mercy. But add that she and the rest of the team are beyond motivated to bring home the first volleyball title in school history, and that’s a bad outlook for opponents.
A 6-foot-2 outside hitter who brings thunder from all sides of the net, Mruzik was named the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year last year after collecting 420 kills, a .514 kill percentage, 165 digs and 65 aces.
“Jess is just the real thing,” Mercy head coach Loretta Vogel said. “Her athleticism, she’s just a natural.”
Mruzik comes from a basketball family but found out her gifts were in volleyball after taking up the sport in fourth grade. She already has built up a diverse volleyball resume with her experiences on the world, national, club and high school stages.
Mruzik last year captained the national team that won a gold medal at the NORCECA Continental Championships in Honduras, and she was named MVP of the tournament.
“People really take volleyball serious overseas,” Mruzik said. “Playing with Team USA, you get a taste of that. It’s not the club world. These people are playing for money and will do whatever it takes to win. A lot of times in club, you play the same people over and over again. You know how one girl is going to play and how one team is going to play. Internationally, you have to make changes on the fly because they play volleyball differently than you.”
Vogel said she first saw Mruzik at one of the coach’s camps. But after seeing her perform so well at the camp, Vogel was disappointed to learn that Mruzik was still in eighth grade at the time and not an incoming freshman.
Vogel has seen Mruzik get better and better during her first three years at Mercy.
“She had a very complete package for a young lady,” Vogel said. “But I think the strength of her game each year when she comes back to me in the fall, everything she does is stronger. Her attacking is stronger and very precise on everything she wants to do.”
Mruzik will be graduating early, in December, and will attempt to enroll at University of Michigan in January.
If she can’t enroll early – the university can take only a limited number of athletes who wish to do so – she’ll take classes at a community college and start training with her future Michigan teammates.
Even with her national team opportunities, Mruzik loves the high school experience too much to not play her final season, even adding that if Mercy had won the Division 1 championship last year she still would have come back to play high school as a senior.
“High school season is a fun time of the year,” Mruzik said. “I’m super close with the girls on our team, and we all mesh really well. That’s definitely something that helps, and there’s not a lot of team drama.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Farmington Hills Mercy’s Jess Mruzik takes a big swing during her team’s Division 1 Semifinal last season against Lake Orion. (Middle) Mruzik (33) and her teammates huddle after a point at Kellogg Arena.
Performance: Hudsonville's Kaylee Maat
October 11, 2019
Kaylee Maat
Hudsonville senior – Volleyball
The fourth-year varsity setter had 35 assists – including the 4,000th of her high school career – to lead the No. 2-ranked Eagles past No. 9 Grand Haven 3-1 in a matchup of top Division 1 teams, earning the MHSAA “Performance of the Week.” Maat became the 12th Michigan athlete to surpass that 4,000 milestone, and with 4,183 she’s up to seventh in state history for career assists since the introduction of rally scoring during the 2004-05 season.
Maat is averaging 7.6 assists per game this season and also has 22 aces for a Hudsonville team that is 36-2 as it pursues its first MHSAA championship in this sport. Two days before the Grand Haven match, Maat and the Eagles got past Division 2 top-ranked Grand Rapids Christian 3-2 to avenge its most recent of two defeats this fall. (Hudsonville also has twice avenged its first loss of this season, to Division 1 No. 3 Lowell). In addition to joining the varsity lineup as a freshman, Maat is a three-time team captain and earned all-state honorable mention last season to go with a number of other accolades during her career.
After growing up playing softball as well, Maat turned her full athletic attention to volleyball in high school and has helped the Eagles to District titles the last two seasons. She also carries a 3.3 grade-point average and will continue her academic and athletic careers at Ferris State University, where she plans to study sports communications in pursuit of a career in event planning for a sports franchise or athletic program.
Coach Teresa VanDerSchaaf said: “It has been a true honor to coach Kaylee over the last four years. She has developed into such an amazing leader that genuinely cares for her teammates and their success. She shares credit with her team and loves watching them succeed. Kaylee has time and time again stepped up in big matches as well as stepped up in leadership roles. She handles pressure situations really well. We place a lot of ownership on our captains, and for Kaylee to rise to that opportunity and care about her development, as well as her team’s, is something that is so amazing to see.”
Performance Point: “I've put a lot of work in. But my team gives so much back to me, whether it be feedback or great passes; it comes mostly from them,” Maat said. “I had kind of an idea (I was close to 4,000). Some of my favorite teachers were chirping about it, but I didn't know exactly where I was at. I think it's a milestone. … It's something I've been striving for for a while.”
A better way: “When I was a freshman, I was kind of a hot head. … That comes from just being super passionate about what I do. I want to win in everything that I do in life, whether it's in school – like I want to beat someone else out for a better grade – I'm always competitive about everything, and that's kinda where that came from. But it's directed in a better way now that I've grown up. Learning not everyone responds well to someone jumping in their shoes about something – through the coaches, through Hudsonville, I've learned that.”
Learning to lead: “When I was a sophomore, we went through a leadership book, all the different keys of leadership, and I think I really bought into that and every aspect of it. My sophomore year, I really grew that year because of going through that with my coaches and the other captains. … At the beginning of the year, it’s always a little rocky getting to know the new girls and talking about seeing how people respond to different things – that’s always something to learn. Always giving other people what they want is my top priority.”
More than a game: “I've gained so many friendships through (volleyball). Like yeah, we all love the game, but the relationships you gain through it is what I feel keeps everyone together and supporting each other. That's what I love – the game brings so many people together. Through high school, in my community, and other high schools, and during club I've met a lot of girls from different states. They're people that are exactly like me and love what they do every day.
Creative outlet: “I've always been super-organized – that's my thing – and creating stuff. I've always been into crafts, like when I was a kid I was always making something with my dad outside or in the kitchen with my mom or doing something fun with papers and crafts with my grandma. In my free time, I do a lot of journaling. … Writing all this stuff down in a creative way helps me process all of this stuff.”
– Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Past honorees
Oct. 3: Emily Paupore, Negaunee cross country - Report
Sept. 26: Josh Mason, South Lyon soccer - Report
Sept. 19: Ariel Chang, Utica Eisenhower golf - Report
Sept. 12: Jordyn Shipps, DeWitt swimming - Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Hudsonville setter Kaylee Maat (5) celebrates with her teammates. (Middle) Maat, in her fourth season starting for the Eagles' varsity, sets for one her team's hitters. (Photos by Robert McCulfor Photography.)