Volleyball: Southfield's Ware on Point
November 7, 2011
At 15-0, Jade Ware began to realize where Friday’s second game against Southfield might be headed.
At 20-0, her Southfield volleyball coach Dana Cooper did too.
At 23-0, the Bluejays’ fans were about the boil over. Two points later, they did.
No category exists in the MHSAA volleyball record book for consecutive points served. But it’s fair to say few if any have accomplished what Ware did during her team’s District final win – serve all 25 points, without stop, in her team’s shutout victory in the second game.
“The day of, I got a little nervous about the game. I told my team I’d never been so nervous, and they told me it’s a good thing. It means I was going to do something good today,” Ware said. “Everybody made such a big deal of the game (going in). ... I put so much pressure on myself the day of. People were coming up to me (saying), ‘Are you ready? Are you ready?’
“After the first couple of balls go over, it all goes away.”
The Bluejays had outlasted Berkley 25-20 in the match’s first game when Ware began serving the second. The 25-0 win gave her team a 2-0 advantage. Berkley served to start the third game, but Southfield scored the first point. Ware then served the next five points of that game too as the Bluejays went on to finish the victory 25-19.
The win gave Southfield its fifth-straight District championship and advanced the Bluejays to this week’s regional at Lake Orion. Southfield won the first four of those District titles under coach Alisha Love, who stepped down after last season. Dana Cooper took over this fall, and during an early October practice began teaching Ware her new game serve – a jump serve with top spin.
“I knew she had the power to do a jump. She mastered it almost immediately,” Cooper said. “There’s so much top spin on it, some of her balls fall just on the other side of the net.”
“Correctly? I just started doing it a month ago. That’s why I was so amazed,” Ware added.
Ware totaled 13 aces over the three games, tying her for 14th on the MHSAA list for a best-of-five match. She also had 12 digs, and set up teammate Cassadine Reed for the winning kill in that second game. Ware, both a hitter and a setter (the latter along with senior Nicole Rashleigh) in Southfield’s offense, had the match-winning kill in the third.
Hitting is Ware's favorite volleyball skill, although she said she loves how an ace helps her team. She’d hit strings of five good serves in a row leading up to Friday, but that night was the first time her serve had been so consistent over the course of an entire match.
“The only time I’d smile was after an ace or a kill,” Ware said. “I guess I was in my zone. Nothing was getting to me.”
Click to see the MHSAA volleyball record book listings.
(Photos courtesy of Terry McNamara Photography and the Ware family.)
Reese Earns 1st Championship Dance with Unforgettable Comeback
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 20, 2021
BATTLE CREEK – As Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” rang through the Kellogg Arena speakers Saturday, the Reese volleyball team put on a show.
The Rockets huddled up, sang and danced near their bench following the second set of their Division 3 Final against Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central. In isolation, it looked like the beginning of a celebration. With context, it was a team looking to regain its identity while in a 0-2 hole.
“You have to fake it until you make it, man,” Reese senior setter Aydan Dalak said. “You have to fake it until you make it, and make it look like you’re good.”
Three sets later, the Rockets replaced dancing with the happiest player pile in Reese volleyball history, as they came back to defeat SMCC 18-25, 19-25, 25-15, 25-21, 16-14 and claim the school’s first volleyball Finals title.
“It was just exciting. It was, I think, everything that people want to see when they come to a state championship game,” Reese coach Angie Compton said. “We definitely were not ourselves at the beginning, and we loosened up that third set and we just never looked back. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t without our, ‘Oh no, are we going to do this?’ moments. But they’re just a great group of girls that just got the job done.”
The win denied SMCC a third straight Division 3 title, and ended with a back-and-forth final set, which began with each team going on a 5-0 run. The Kestrels took a 9-7 lead during the set, but, outside of the final tally, neither team led by more than one after that.
Reese (35-5-1) clinched the title on the second championship point of the night, as senior Maddi Osantowski and junior Abby Karst combined for a block.
“Honestly, I don’t even remember it,” Osantowski said. “I just saw her go up and I was like, ‘Whatever, let’s just try and block this girl and get the game over with.’ I was kind of in shock. That was my first block against her the whole game. It was great.”
As the tension of the final set increased, Reese continued to stay loose, lining up as sprinters on the one side of the court as a timeout would come to an end, and faux sprinting across to the other side when the horn would blow. That joined a stirring rendition of “Living on a Prayer” and a team shadow boxing exercise during “Eye of the Tiger” in getting the Rockets into the proper headspace to come out victorious.
“I was like, ‘Everybody is probably judging us like crazy. Do they not care?’” Compton said with a laugh. “We expected to win. We came in thinking we could do this. We don’t think everybody else thought that, but we don’t care. We definitely care, especially in those moments, we care the most when we’re loosening ourselves up. When we’re dancing and getting loose, we know that’s how we play better. I know it looks weird, but it’s very important to our style of play.”
Also very important to their style of play is Osantowski, who finished with 34 kills and totaled 110 attack attempts during the match.
“I know that she will put it down when we need it to be put down,” said Dalak, who had 42 assists on the night. “It’s good to mix it up sometimes, too, because we need to get those blockers moving around.”
Dalak did switch it up in a crucial moment, ending a wild rally with a dump for the final point of the fourth set. Dalak also had 13 digs and six kills in the match, while Sarah Gray added 21 digs and six kills. Josie Johnson led the Reese defense with 29 digs, while Osantowski added 17.
While Reese was getting loose and gaining momentum, SMCC (36-12) was attempting to regain what it had in the opening two sets.
“A big part of it is, I tell them, ‘Take a deep breath, let’s focus on the things that we know,’” Kestrels co-coach Cassandra Haut said. “What do we know about the other side? Is the setter up, is the setter down? What do they normally hit in this situation? And we talk about the rotation we’re in. What’s our best hit? Any way to just kind of refocus on something else, not the nerves or anything else that you’re feeling.”
Senior Kate Collingsworth spread the wealth with her 52 assists for SMCC. Jessica Costlow had 22 kills, McKenna Payne had 21 and Audrey Cousino had 10. Payne also had 29 digs and four aces, while Costlow had 19 digs.
“I am super, super proud of my team and everything they’ve accomplished this year,” Haut said. “They persevered through a lot of different things, and we play a really tough schedule. And I think it shows with how hard we can push.”
PHOTOS (Top) Reese’s Aydan Dalak (4) revs up her team during Saturday’s Division 3 championship win. (Middle) St. Mary’s Kate Collingsworth (3) and Lauren Conant (5) put up a block as Reese’s Calli Blossom aims to send a ball through. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)