Volleyball Finals: Instant Classics
November 19, 2011
BATTLE CREEK -- Alexis Huntey will now be in the conversation when sister Ashley reminisces about her MHSAA Class C Volleyball title in 2007.
The 6-2 senior outside hitter led Morley-Stanwood to the school's second championship Saturday, and the first since her older sister helped the Mohawks to their only other title four years ago against Ubly.
She’s one of the heroes of Saturday’s MHSAA Finals at Kellogg Arena. We’ve got highlights from all four games, and some of the stories behind them.
(Click of full stats from the Finals and Semifinals.)
Class C
When Morley-Stanwood won its 2007 title, Alexis Huntey watched from the bench as a team manager.
Now, younger sis might even have the better story of the two.
The Mohawks (58-4-2) claimed the 2011 championship by downing 2010 champion Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central 3-2 in one of the most thrilling Finals in MHSAA history.
The see-saw affair saw 32 ties and 13 lead changes from beginning to its nail-biting end, and featured 124 kills. With Morley-Stanwood leading 2-1 in sets (25-22, 26-28, 25-22), the Mohawks were just two points away from victory in set No. 4, leading the Kestrels 23-22. However, Kestrels battled to a 26-24 win to force a decisive fifth set.
Monroe St. Mary (48-4) came out firing in the final set, bolting to an 8-4 lead before the Mohawks rattled off five consecutive points to surge ahead. Fitting to this matchup, the game was tied three more times before Morley-Stanwood went ahead for good on a kill by Kayla Rosman to make it 12-11.
Then, after a Huntey kill put the Mohawks on the brink, the celebration began when a Kestrel attempt sailed wide of the end line to give Morley a 15-13 win and the trophy.
Huntey's 30 kills rank tied for third on the MHSAA Finals list, and she might need ice for her shoulder after 84 attempts.
Monroe SMCC's 63 team kills rank fourth on the all-time MHSAA Finals ledger, while Morley-Stanwood's 61 are tied for sixth. The teams combined for 387 attack attempts and the setters combined for 121 assists.
The defenses played a key role in the roller-coaster affair, as the Kestrels turned in 93 digs, while the Mohawks had 84.
Class A
In the first-ever MHSAA Volleyball Finals appearance for both schools, Rockford rolled over Lake Orion in three sets, 25-21, 25-23, 25-10 to claim the school's first crown.
The Rams (60-8) used an efficient attack to dispose of the Dragons (54-13-3), hitting .289 while limiting Lake Orion to a .115 attack percentage.
Senior setter Halle Peterson had plenty of options offensively, spreading the opportunities around the Rams’ front line. Four players recorded double-digit kills for Rockford, paced by senior hitter Jessica Majerle's 14. Murphy Heyer added 11 kills and led the team with 15 digs, while Andrea Kacsits and Avery Punches chipped in with 10 kills apiece.
Lake Orion senior Shannon Murdock led the Dragons with 13 kills.
Class B
Like both Class A finalists, Tecumseh was in its first MHSAA Final on Saturday. But reigning champion Fruitport played on its strength and playoff experience to claim a second-straight title and the third in program history.
The Trojans (50-8) defeated Tecumseh 25-13, 25-20, 25-19. The Indians finished 55-4-1.
Fruitport also won Class B in 2005 and has finished MHSAA runner-up four times. The Trojans surivived a five-game Semifinal against East Grand Rapids to earn Saturday's opportunity.
Breanna Geile had 15 kills and Brandie Jones 14 for Fruitport, with setter Lauren Hazekamp totaling 33 assists. Kelsey Berrington had 32 kills for Tecumseh, and Carly Tillotson had 29 assists.
Class D
The Tigers of Battle Creek St. Philip continued to make themselves at home in their backyard at Kellogg, winning the Class D title for a sixth straight year.
This year's victim was the same school against which St. Philip began its recent streak, Wyoming Tri-unity Christian. The Tigers pounded out a 3-0 win over the Defenders, 25-16, 25-13 and 25-11 in rolling to the school's 17th title overall.
For coach Vicky Groat, it meant moving one win closer to the school record for MHSAA crowns. She now has led seven Tigers teams to championships, two behind her mother, Sheila Guerra, for whom Vicky played as a student at St. Philip. The Tigers' only title not won with Groat or Guerra at the helm was a 1979 win under the tutelage of Becky Emrich.
On Saturday, it was an attack of underclassmen leading the way for St. Philip (59-4-2). Junior Amanda McKinzie registered 16 kills, and sophomore Sierra Hubbard-Neil added 12 to lead the attack. Hubbard-Neil converted 12 of 23 attempts with only one error, hitting .478.
Directing the Tigers attack was junior setter Andrea Lesiow, distributing 30 assists.
Tri-unity (39-14-2) had no answer for the Tigers, who also played tremendous defense with nine blocks and 42 digs. The Defenders were led by junior Alyssa Petrick's 17 kills.
PHOTOS
(Above) Big hitter: Morley-Stanwood senior Alexis Huntey winds up for one of her 30 kills in the Class C Final.
(Below) No. 1: Rockford, in its first MHSAA Final, claimed its first championship in the Class A title game.
Believe it: Mercy Nets 2nd Finals Title with 'Unbelievable' Comeback
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 18, 2023
BATTLE CREEK – Loretta Vogel had a single word to describe Farmington Hills Mercy’s five-set victory Saturday in the Division 1 Volleyball Final: Unbelievable.
“When we played Marian, to me, that was everything for me,” the Mercy coach said of her team’s Quarterfinal win over the 2022 Division 1 champion. “We planned, we knew what we wanted to do, and we went in there and it was three games – bing, bang, boom, here we go.
“Then it’s like, ‘We’re going to Battle Creek.’ We did our scouting reports, then to get in the Finals, to be down two games, such adversity, unbelievable. I don’t know if it’s going to hit me for six months, what we accomplished. It was unbelievable.”
After dropping the first two sets, Mercy came back to defeat Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern 13-25, 23-25, 25-21, 25-22, 15-12 at Kellogg Arena, adding a second championship to the program’s first won in 2019.
The Marlins finished the season with a 32-15-3 record and entered the postseason outside the top 10 in Division 1. With just two seniors on the roster, three sophomores in the starting lineup and a freshman as one of their leading hitters, one can start to see how Vogel arrived at “unbelievable.”
Of course, on Saturday, they didn’t play like a young, unranked team, especially after going down two sets.
“I think we were a little timid in the first set,” said Mercy junior setter Campbell Flynn, who is committed to Nebraska. “It was our first time actually being in the Finals, so we were all a little nervous. But I think we stayed composed later in the set, and also kept rallies alive.”
Flynn put on a masterclass in game management, finishing with 41 assists, but doing so much more than that.
“Campbell Flynn took over the match,” Northern coach Valerie Lurye said. “We put a lot of our gameplan to making sure (Flynn) couldn’t score, and forcing her to do things like setting other kids. And the other kids showed up. … We forced her to have to do something different, which is what we wanted to do. We did really well Set 2, then Set 3 and 4 she caught on. She’s going to Nebraska for a simple reason, and that’s because she’s able to be someone who takes over the match and understands, ‘Hey, I can’t dump the ball right now. I have other people I have to go to.’ Her movement of the ball is what really threw us off our gameplan.”
The biggest beneficiary of Campbell’s ball movement was freshman Kate Kalczynski, who finished the match with a game-high 25 kills. Five of those kills came during the fifth set.
“Kate, she played amazing today,” Flynn said. “I literally just had to set her the ball and she got kills. I’m so proud of her. She’s only a freshman, but she played a big role. I was just so beyond proud of her.”
Cree Hollier added 10 kills for Mercy, while Angie Butler – playing with a torn meniscus suffered over the summer – had seven kills and 22 digs. One of Butler’s kills came off a wild scramble late in the fourth set and gave her team a 20-18 lead. It was the first bit of distance Mercy was able to create in what had been a back-and-forth set – which the Marlins went on to win.
Vogel said her team started to play like it had nothing to lose after the first two sets, and that flurry certainly backed up that assertion.
The change in attitude and energy didn’t go unnoticed on the other side of the net.
“I would say they just really turned up their energy,” Northern senior Elana Erickson said. “The first two sets, they didn’t have a lot of energy and they couldn’t really serve and pass. They really turned it up though in the third, fourth and fifth set.”
Erickson, who will play at Western Michigan next year, finished with 22 kills and 27 digs to lead Northern (45-8-1). Kendall Hopewell added 16 kills, 11 digs and seven total blocks, while Lexie Stotenbur had 41 assists.
Jillian Collins had 24 digs for Mercy, while Flynn added 15.
PHOTOS (Top) Farmington Hills Mercy surrounds Campbell Flynn (28) in celebration Saturday at Kellogg Arena. (Middle) The Marlins’ Kate Kalczynski (2) connects on a kill attempt with Kendall Hopewell (9) and Riley Loehfelm (16) putting up a block. (Below) FHN’s Madalin Hersman (6) and Flynn meet at the net. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)