NLC Champ Mackinaw City Eyes Bright Future
November 6, 2020
By Tom Spencer
Special for Second Half
Mackinaw City’s Marlie Postula provided nearly perfect serving this fall.
The rest of her Comets volleyball team was indeed perfect in Northern Lakes Conference play. And, you might say they are “set” for the next couple of years. She’s the team’s sole setter, and she’s only a sophomore.
“Marlie is probably the most solid player on the team,” said her coach Rachel Grooters as the Comets entered postseason play this week. “She leads in serve percentage ... believe it or not attack percentage, hitting percentage, passing percentage.
“She’s my leader in all those stats.”
Postula was one of three sophomores on the court nearly every moment this fall for Mackinaw City. Two more sophomores got some varsity experience while playing mostly on the junior varsity team that was perfect in league play as well. None of the sophomores experienced a loss in junior varsity league play as freshmen.
“I know I have a young team,” Grooters said. “I know I have juniors and seniors, but sophomores are pretty much the backbone of my team.”
Grooters had big expectations this year thanks to her five sophomores’ previous winning ways.
“We definitely went into it with the attitude that we were going to get conference,” the veteran coach said. “We wanted that number on the banner.
“We wanted the trophy,” she continued. “And having an undefeated season is icing on the cake.”
Along the way to its perfect NLC season, the Comets were led by the serving of Postula. She was successful in 207 straight serves at one point. She finished regular-season play missing just four serves.
The Comets’ season ended in District Semifinal play Wednesday with a four-set loss to Pickford. They finished the season with a 14-0 league and 21-12 overall record.
With junior outside hitter and captain Raeann Hingston, junior inside hitter Ella House, sophomore outside/inside hitter Larissa Huffman and sophomore middle hitter Madison Smith also expected back next fall, Grooters is already excited about what’s next. She is losing only two seniors – outside/inside hitter Jenna Wiertalla and captain middle hitter Carissa Sroka. Junior inside hitter Olivia Lidy should also be back next fall.
“You know, in a small school like us, you kind of get who comes out,” noted Grooters. “This is who is here. They are all athletes.
“They all want to play,” Grooters continued. “They all want to be here. And, they love competition.”
Mackinaw City was spotless in league play despite a tiny grade 9-12 enrollment of 40 students. Some of the schools in the conference are nearly twice the Comets’ size, one is more than double their size, and a few are similar in enrollment.
Conference championships have been hard to come by for the Comets. They only have three to claim. Grooters was a player on the first Mackinaw City league champ in 2000. A second title was won in 2015. The Comets were unblemished in that run too, but it was only a 10-match league season.
While the Comets’ play is far from the loudest of league teams, they are there to win, Grooters proudly indicated.
“It is funny. I think they’re quiet,” she said. “A lot of teams make more noise. Our girls take it serious. And, they want to win. They’re not going to just stand there and let somebody take the lead.”
Grooters can’t help but think the perfect season was almost taken away by COVID-19. She’s proud of all the schools’ efforts to make the season happen, including keeping the face protection on.
“I was so excited to coach them this year, but I was so nervous with the COVID stuff,” she said. “They wanted to play badly. They were worried they wouldn’t be able to.
“They want to be out on that court,” she continued. “Once we know we could practice and compete a little bit, it all fell into place.”
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) Mackinaw City’s Ella House prepares to serve during a match against Alanson this fall. (Middle) Marlie Postula sets for her hitters; she led the team in serving, hitting and passing percentages this fall. (Photos by Izzy House.)
Team of the Month: Gladwin Volleyball
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
November 15, 2022
Tony Wetmore hadn’t arrived yet the last time Gladwin’s varsity volleyball team won a Jack Pine Conference championship. But he had a trustworthy witness able to give a first-hand account of what his Flying G’s have been chasing over the last 40+ years.
Wetmore’s mother and junior varsity coach Jane Wetmore, then Jane Huber – played on that last league championship volleyball team. She also was the one who got her son into coaching; he started his Gladwin tenure as the freshman volleyball coach teaching a sport he admittedly didn’t know much about himself.
But Mom clearly was onto something.
Less than a decade later, Wetmore has just finished up his sixth season as Gladwin’s varsity coach – and his team has finished its first league championship season since 1978, earning the MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” honor for October.
Gladwin has been hovering in contention much of the last decade, but this team had all the ingredients to end the drought. Start with senior outside hitter Erin Breault and senior setter Delaney Reynolds – Breault broke the school’s single-season and career kills records this season, and Reynolds broke the same records for assists. Additionally, Breault led the JPC in kills, and junior middle Lizzie Haines led the league in hitting percentage.
But that high-caliber talent also was surrounded by several contributors who helped Gladwin push past longtime nemesis Beaverton and into the top spot.
“I felt like the whole season I could split the team in half, and one team could take first in the conference and the other team could take like fourth. I just felt like we were that deep where we were good and we could practice at a pretty high level, which was really cool,” Wetmore said.
“It’s obviously linked together, the assist record breaker and the kill record breaker on the same team,” he added. “And I think the thing that really pushed us over the edge this year is we had so many different attackers that were really, really good. My outside hitter Erin broke the record, she led the league in kills. My middle hitter led the league in hitting percentage. Both of those are reflective of our ability to get the ball to our attackers, which is the setter’s main job – but our back row played really well also all season, so a super-big team effort for all of them.”
The Flying G’s were able to win the Jack Pine in large part because they became the first league opponent since 2018 to defeat annual power Beaverton – Gladwin swept the pair of matches against its rival, and those remain Beaverton’s only league defeats over the last five seasons.
The Flying G’s had been building toward this. They won their District in 2018, and then finished second in the JPC in 2019. The team was only .500 in 2020, but came back to finish 29-5 last season and 29-10 this fall.
Wetmore brought Breault, Reynolds and senior libero Delaney Conley up to varsity as sophomores that 2020 season. Breault, Reynolds and Haines earned all-region honors this season, and Wetmore was named his region’s Coach of the Year by the Michigan Interscholastic Volleyball Coaches Association. (Conley, a standout softball player, has signed to continue playing that sport at Saginaw Valley State.)
More quickly than hoped, of course, Gladwin made its season-ending exit in District play again. But the Flying G’s don’t plan on the prior good times coming to an end.
True, the seniors who will graduate are part of a class that’s been long-anticipated across all sports – another example this fall has been the football team, 12-0 and playing in a Division 5 Semifinal on Saturday.
Wetmore expects his volleyball seniors’ impact to last as younger players who watched them succeed this fall take their turns on the court with a larger idea of what’s possible.
“(It’s) just getting over the hump. Talk about our goals – every year trying to win the conference championship but we can’t get there. Every year since 2018, trying to beat Beaverton but we can’t do it. Districts, we’d won every once in a while … we won in 2011, so from 2011-15 we couldn’t get over it, but in (20)16 we got a District and then we got the next two,” Wetmore said. “When you break that barrier, it makes it easier to realize you can do things.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2022-23
September: Negaunee girls tennis - Report