#TBT: Mules Kick Into Championship Gear
November 6, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Temperance Bedford’s volleyball team entered this week’s MHSAA Class A tournament ranked No. 1 and in pursuit of its fourth Class A championship.
Their most recent titles, in 2001 and 2005, both saw the Kicking Mules come back to win after falling in the first games of their championship matches – with the 2001 team in particular traveling into unfamiliar territory on the way to finishing as one of the winningest in MHSAA history.
That Temperance Bedford team finished 82-1, with what remains the third most wins in MHSAA volleyball history. The Mules won 72 straight matches and nine tournaments for coach Jodi Manore, who entered this season with the second-most wins in MHSAA volleyball history and a record of 1,743-292-50.
The 2001 Final saw Temperance Bedford face Portage Northern in a rematch of the 1999 and 1992 LP Class A Finals, both Portage Northern wins during that program’s run of six titles over eight seasons.
The Mules dropped the first game in 2001 by a score of 15-8 and trailed 14-13 in the second before edging Northern 16-14 and then controlling the deciding game for the majority on the way to winning 15-11.
The final kill was put down by Missy Mohrbach, who had a team-high 15, off an assist by Lindi Bankowski – whose 39 total are tied for eighth on the now-retired Finals record list from the pre-rally scoring era. (Rally scoring was introduced for the 2004-05 season.)
Bankowski also had 10 kills and 12 digs and had played on the 1998 Class A championship team. She went on to play at Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne. After a record-setting career there and some coaching at the high school level, Bankowski (now Sallach) went on to coach at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee and then Mississippi State University until stepping down after the 2012 season.
Mohrbach played at Owens Community College in Ohio and then Wayne State University, while Melissa Meinhart (nine kills, 18 digs in the 2001 Final) also was on the 1998 Mules championship team and then played at IPFW. Erica Kaczorowski went on to play at Xavier University, and Jennifer Sulewski, a sophomore who came off the bench with nine kills, eventually played at Western Michigan University.
Bedford defeated a Portage Northern team that featured hitter Katie Bright, who went on to play at the University of Kentucky, and setter Laura Bellinger, who set a pre-rally scoring Finals record of 49 assists in the match and later played at Army and then the University of North Alabama.
Temperance Bedford faces Ypsilanti Lincoln in a District Semifinal tonight after opening with a 3-0 win over Ypsilanti Community on Tuesday.
PHOTO: Temperance Bedford's Missy Mohrbach winds up for the final kill of the 2001 Class A Volleyball Final at Western Michigan University.
Beaverton Volleyball Makes History Twice
November 10, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Beaverton’s dream volleyball season ended Thursday with a Class C Regional Final loss to Shelby.
But the Beavers never will forget how they fulfilled aspirations and inspired future generations by winning multiple first-time championships this fall.
The MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” for October clinched its first league and District championships in program history, earning a banner-sized place on the gym wall alongside a number of Beaverton programs that have had success over the decades.
The Beavers claimed the Jack Pine Conference title during the final week of October with a 13-1 league record and by two victories over runner-up Houghton Lake. They then hosted and won their Class C District, sweeping both matches of the tournament including the final against Coleman on Nov. 2.
“We really wanted to win that banner. We really tried to win that banner. We hoped we’d win it,” Beaverton coach Scott Evans said. “Now we’ll be more hungry for it, and now that we’ve been there we’ll be more confident.
“When I first came here, the team I had had a lot of talent. But we would go to tournaments and not win a set. I’d say, ‘How did we not win a set? We’re better than some of these teams.’ What we realized is they didn’t know how to win, didn’t know they deserved to win. Once we tasted winning, we didn’t need to teach it anymore. We’ve tasted winning a conference, winning a District, and we can definitely do it again.”
Evans finished his ninth season leading the program, and surely the Beavers have come a long way – when they won 12 matches his first season, he was told that was the program record for wins.
This fall, Beaverton finished 35-11 for its second-most victories behind a 38-12 run a few seasons ago – but with this one against a more competitive slate of opponents. The Beavers won tournament matches early against Rogers City (still alive in Class D) and Muskegon Catholic Central (which lost Thursday) and took competitive losses to Corunna (still alive in Class B) and Saginaw Swan Valley (which lost to Corunna during their Regional).
“I just realized that even when we lost to these good teams, there was no let up, no quit,” Evans said. “A lot of times when you play ranked teams above you, you’re just in line – this is just happening (to us) – and this team didn’t have that. They’d just fight, no matter what the score was. We could be down a set and they’d fight. We could be down 10 points and they’d fight. And if teams let up on us, we could come back and get them.”
Beaverton had finished second in the Jack Pine three times under Evans and third twice, including last fall. The Beavers also had made District Finals twice during his tenure, most recently in 2013.
There definitely were expectations this fall. Three years ago the team had no seniors, forcing Evans to bring up sophomores who were talented enough to play but could’ve also benefitted from more time on the junior varsity.
That said, he’d noticed in the past a big jump in players’ understanding of the team’s system after their second seasons on varsity – a good sign with this the third for those seniors who came up as sophomores. Seniors this fall filled all but one starting spot.
Left-side hitter Ali Aldrich led the Beavers in kills for the second straight season, this fall with 461 to top a balanced attack that included four on the outside capable of killing points plus two middles who often were forgotten by defenses because of that outside attack. Another senior hitter – Reiss Faber – also spent half her time setting the offense, and senior libero Dallas Longstreth set season (803) and career (1,467) records for digs in keying the defense.
Evans doesn’t expect another eternity to pass before Beaverton earns more hardware. Two freshmen came up this season and made big contributions – Molly Gerow was the second-leading hitter with 295 kills, and Taylor Inscho handled setting when Faber was not.
Having those freshmen as part of this run was by design. Evans preaches for his players to hand down a legacy and tries to get younger players on the roster to soak up some of that experience.
The legacy these seniors are leaving behind just happens to include a couple of championships.
“Our gym doesn’t have a volleyball banner, and we always talk about let’s be the team that puts them up,” Evans said. “Our goal is always that, but it’s not our focus – we focus on what we do, the things we can control, who we are playing, and doing our jobs. (But) they’re excited. This team has had energy all year. I’m still playing videos over and over of our last points when we win, when we won the conference, when we won the District. Just the excitement level of the players and fans, it is just fun to watch. It was just contagious this year, the excitement and emotion they put into the game.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2017-18
September: Shepherd girls golf - Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Beaverton poses with its Jack Pine Conference championship trophy Oct. 25 to celebrate its first league title. (Middle) Senior Reiss Faber serves during a match this fall. (Top photo by Stephanie Johnston, middle photo by Bob Frei.)