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.

#TBT: Before They Were Olympians

August 25, 2016

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

Michigan athletes enjoyed another banner showing at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro that wrapped up Sunday. We cheered for them all – but paid special attention to a handful who previously competed in MHSAA sports before achieving more at the international level.

Much of the following was taken from a recent series of MHSAA Instagram posts that highlighted our state’s Olympians with MHSAA ties. Athletes are listed with high school and graduation year. 

Men’s Basketball

Draymond Green, Saginaw, 2008 – Green got a taste for championships in leading Saginaw to back-to-back Class A titles in 2007 and 2008 before starring for Michigan State University and now for the Golden State Warriors. He averaged nearly 10 minutes per game off the bench for the U.S. team, playing in all eight games during the undefeated gold medal march.

Women’s Swimming & Diving

Allison Schmitt, Canton, 2008 – Schmitt won the 200 and 500-yard freestyle championships at the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals in both 2006 and 2007 and continues to hold the all-Finals records in both events; she then went on to shine at University of Georgia. She helped the U.S. 800-meter freestyle relay to gold and the 400 freestyle relay to silver, bringing her personal medal count to eight over the last three Olympics.

Women’s Crew

Grace Latz, Jackson Northwest, 2006 – Latz played volleyball during her high school career at Northwest. She took up rowing at University of Wisconsin and helped her quadruple sculls team to a fifth-place finish in Rio.

Grace Luczak, Ann Arbor Pioneer, 2007 – Luczak also was a high school volleyball player and rowed on Pioneer’s team (although crew is not an MHSAA-sponsored tournament sport, some schools have teams) before going on to University of Michigan and then Stanford University. She finished fourth in the pair at Rio.

Ellen Tomek, Flint Powers Catholic, 2002 – Tomek played basketball and softball for the Chargers and also made the Olympics in 2008 after taking up rowing at Michigan. She finished in sixth place this time in doubles sculls after finishing fifth in Beijing.

Men’s Track & Field - Discus

Andrew Evans, Portage Northern, 2009 – Evans played football, ice hockey and participated in track & field for the Huskies, winning discus at the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals in 2008 and 2009. He finished 16th in qualifying at Rio, just missing the top 12 who advanced to the final competition.

Women’s Volleyball

Alisha Glass, Leland, 2007 – Glass remains arguably the top player in MHSAA volleyball history with records still for career kills, single-season aces and career aces (accomplished during the rally scoring era beginning in 2004). She led Leland to the Class D title in 2006 and then played at Penn State University – and this month set the U.S. team to a bronze medal in Rio.

Lauren Paolini, Saline, 2005 – Paolini was both a volleyball and basketball standout for Saline before moving on to the University of Texas. She served as an alternate for this Olympic team.

Additional Olympians with MHSAA ties

Cindy Ofili, Ann Arbor Huron, 2012, Great Britain – Ofili won three LP Division 1 championships and was on a winning relay in 2012 before going on to run at Michigan. She took fourth in the 100 hurdles in Rio.

Tiffany (Ofili) Porter, Ypsilanti, 2005, Great Britain – Porter still owns MHSAA LP Division 2 Finals records in the 100 and 300 hurdles and shares the record in long jump after winning six individual Finals championships over her four-year varsity career. Porter finished seventh in the 100 hurdles in Rio and also ran in the 2012 Olympics. She also attended Michigan.

Alex Rose, Ogemaw Heights, 2009, Samoa – Rose was the 2009 LP Division 2 champion in shot put before also competing at Central Michigan University. Like Evans, he also threw discus in Rio but did not qualify for the final with his top throw coming in 29th.

PHOTOS: (Clockwise from left): Allison Schmitt waves to the crowd during her last MHSAA Finals; Draymond Green is introduced before a Class A Final at the Breslin Center; Alisha Glass confers with a teammate during a Class D Volleyball Final; Portage Northern grad Andrew Evans.