P-W Volleyball Adds to School's Championship Tradition with 1st Finals Win
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 19, 2022
BATTLE CREEK – The message in the Pewamo-Westphalia huddle Saturday following a dropped third set was to get back to having fun.
The Pirates had been at their best all season while playing loose, and in the Division 3 Final with Kalamazoo Christian pulling to within a set, they didn’t want to let the pressure get to them.
Then Kellogg Arena provided an assist.
“Our team has a tradition of the ‘Cupid Shuffle,’” senior outside hitter Dani Pohl said. “It’s always on our playlist, and we always drop anything to dance to it. So, before the song came on we were just like, ‘We need to play loose. We play our best when we have fun.’ Then that song came on and we were like, ‘OK. This is our song. This is our set. We’re going to win this thing in four. We’re going to play loose and have fun. I honestly think the dance break just loosened everybody up. We knew what we needed to do, and we just went out there and did it.”
Pewamo-Westphalia shuffled its way to a 25-17 win in the fourth set, closing out a 25-17, 25-23, 23-25, 25-17 victory and the program’s first Finals title.
“The feeling really hasn’t set in yet,” said Pirates junior Taylor Smith, who had the match-winning ace. “It doesn’t really feel like we just did that. I think it’s really important for all of us, because not only did we do it for ourselves, we did it for our entire community. Everybody has been looking forward to this. We did something big, and it’s going to last us forever.”
Pewamo-Westphalia has had plenty of success as an athletic department. But this trip to the Finals was the volleyball program’s first since a runner-up finish in 1994.
“The popularity of our sport right now, there’s been a lot of success over the eight years that I’ve been here, and the amount of kids we have coming out to play the sport right now is just humongous,” Pewamo-Westphalia coach Jon Thelen said. “Every time we are successful in something, more kids seem to show up out of nowhere. This is just a great way to keep the community growing and loving the sport. I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot more state titles ahead of this program.”
To get title No. 1, the Pirates had to hold off a scrappy Kalamazoo Christian team that didn’t blink when it went down two sets in its first Final since 1976.
The Comets battled through the third set, and built a 15-11 lead after a pair of kills from junior outside hitter Holland DeVries.
Pewamo-Westphalia (46-2-2) erased the deficit and eventually held a 20-18 lead before a back-and-forth finish tightened up the match at two sets to one. On Friday, Kalamazoo Christian had found itself in a similar position, going down two sets before coming all the way back to defeat Calumet in the Semifinal.
“I think I said those exact words, ‘We were right here yesterday,’” Kalamazoo Christian coach Carlie Southland said. “‘If we can come back like we did yesterday, we can come back like that today.’”
Of course, that wasn’t to be, as Pewamo-Westphalia took control of the fourth set relatively early, and built a 20-11 lead before eventually closing it out with Smith’s ace.
“I’m just proud of this group,” Thelen said. “We really battled all season, and it’s one of those things that started last year. I just kind of had this feeling going through the summer of what we were going to be able to do this year. I knew we were going to be very good, but how good, we just proved it today against a very good team.”
Saige Martin led the Pewamo-Westphalia attack with 13 kills, while adding 12 digs and three blocks. Pohl added 10 kills and 15 digs, while Smith had 36 assists and 11 digs. Sierra Schneider led the front line defensively for the Pirates with five blocks.
DeVries led Kalamazoo Christian with 17 kills and 16 digs. Marissa Fetterley added 11 kills and four blocks, while Makenna Ekkens and Hope Krichke each had 12 digs. Lola Stecker had 38 assists for the Comets (38-6-3).
PHOTOS (Top) Pewamo-Westphalia celebrates its Division 3 championship Saturday at Kellogg Arena. (Middle) The Pirates’ Sierra Schneider (12) winds up to hit with Kalamazoo Christian’s Marisa Fetterley (15) putting up a block. (Below) P-W’s Dani Pohl makes contact on a kill attempt.
Sacred Heart Caps Classic Comeback with 1st Volleyball Championship
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 19, 2022
BATTLE CREEK – You could forgive Lillie Laney for not immediately processing what she and her Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart volleyball teammates accomplished Saturday.
In fact, you could forgive anyone who was in Kellogg Arena to watch the Irish comeback in the Division 4 Final for not being quite sure what they just witnessed.
Sacred Heart looked all but done after two sets, but came roaring back to defeat Athens 14-25, 13-25, 25-23, 27-25, 15-11 and claim its first-ever Finals title.
“I can’t even remember what the last point was,” the Sacred Heart senior said. “It’s all just a blur. I just remember us getting the point and everybody dog-piling.”
The last point was an Athens attack that went just long, and as soon as the line judge’s flag went up, the Sacred Heart bench met Laney and her teammates in the center of the court to start the celebration.
Sacred Heart won the match’s final six points, completing a third straight comeback in a must-win set, and finishing off what had seemed improbable about an hour earlier.
“I feel like at the beginning when we were down by a lot, we started getting down on ourselves,” Sacred Heart junior libero Bridget Ruiz said. “In the third set, we kind of were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to pick it up here.’ And we just kind of kept it going and going and going and going.”
The match was the first five-setter of the season for the Irish (44-7-6), who had advanced to the Division 4 Semifinals a year ago.
“That’s the way a state championship match should be,” Irish coach Krista Davis said. “It should be a fight to the end. It should be just a back and forth. I don’t think any team really made mistakes. In my recollection, I just felt like it was who could get the ball and just hit it the hardest. It was pound, pound, pound, pound. That was a good championship match.”
Athens led the majority of the final set, before a Laney block put her team up 12-11. Another block in combination with sophomore setter Sophie Hauck gave the Irish a cushion, and sophomore outside hitter Chelsea Lynch served out the final two points, which ended with Athens attacks going long.
“I always thought it was possible, but that was the final push,” Laney said. “That was the, ‘We gotta go, we gotta get moving. We have this now. It’s in our hands. It’s within reach.’”
Laney finished the match with 19 kills and seven blocks. The 5-foot-10 middle hitter had just two errors on 39 attacks in the match.
Eliza Pieratt had 17 assists and 17 digs for the Irish, while Hauck had 24 assists and four blocks. Ruiz added 29 digs, Angel Brown had 10 kills and 16 digs, and Lynch had 13 digs.
Most of that came over the final three sets, as Athens was dominant to start the match, and looked well on its way to claiming a first Finals title of its own.
Athens’ varied attack with setter Alaina Brubaker feeding hitters Kylie Quist, Kamryn Parlin, Jocelyn Hall and Piper Porter had Sacred Heart reeling through the first two sets.
“I think we started out super strong, and collectively we were playing very, very well,” Athens coach Jacy Cole said. “Then, third set, they started getting the momentum and took that third set. We came back in the fourth set and I thought we did well, just made a few communication errors, I think, that kind of rattled us a little bit. We couldn’t quite get our footing back under us. Fifth set, I think they just were more offensive than we were, and they were very good defensively at the net.”
Quist led the Athens attack with 20 kills, while Hall had 18, Porter had 17 and Parlin had 10. Brubaker finished the day with 56 assists and 19 digs. Parlin had a massive game defensively, as well, adding 23 digs and nine total blocks. The other attackers also chipped in defensively, as Hall had 24 digs, Piper had 18 and Quist had 14.
Athens was playing in a Final for the first time, as it wrapped up a season that featured the program’s first-ever Regional title. Of course, each of the past two years, Athens had lost in the Regional Final to eventual Division 4 champion Battle Creek St. Philip, with their match going to five sets in 2021.
“Right now, our team probably doesn’t feel like it, but we’ve done so much this year together,” Hall said. “It’s one of the best feelings ever, and it’s something that we’re going to remember for a very long time together. All the memories and the history that we’ve made this year with the support of the community right there behind us. They’re a huge part of this. We’re just thankful for everything.”
PHOTOS (Top) Players converge on Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart coach Krista Davis after she receives the Division 4 championship trophy Saturday. (Middle) The Irish’s Lillie Laney (9) follows through on a kill attempt with Athens’ Piper Porter blocking. (Below) Sacred Heart’s Angel Brown (23) puts up a block as the ball reaches the net.