St. Pat’s Volleyball Coaches Reflect on Successful Season

St. Patrick Catholic School volleyball teams recently wrapped up their 2018 season. While the Beacon was unable to provide coverage of all high school sports this year due to limited manpower and resources, we do want to highlight the accomplishments of our hometown athletic teams. We reached out to the freshman, JV and varsity coaches for their take on the past season. What were the most memorable moments and stand out student-athletes? What are they looking forward to in the 2019 season? The following interview responses have been edited for length and clarity.

“Freshmen team was 41-18 this year! We had a great year of learning, laughing, and fun. The girls this year have a lot of talent and I am very proud of them this year! We were a great team and really worked hard each game. We were 5-1 in our conference this year. Not all of our conference (schools) were able to have freshman teams this year, so we played what we could. Most of the games we played were from our tournaments. We were able to bring home 2 trophies this year from our tournaments. We were a tough team to beat, mostly because we have some great servers on our team! We even played a team and held them to 0 points, having one of the girls serve the whole game!” - Coach Katrina Meyers, Freshman Volleyball Team

“Our record was 12-1-12. This was a great group of girls, with lots of talent and we had a lot of fun. The most memorable game for the girls this year was probably when we beat P-W twice at the Morrice Invitational. They said it was like Christmas, lol. It was memorable because they had beat us earlier in the season and we wanted a rematch. The girls executed everything really well that game and it was very fun to watch them all work together so well. Each of the players grew and it is so cool to see how they play at the end of the season compared to the beginning. I think one of the players that grew the most was Emma Scheurer. She worked hard and became smarter as a player. I could see towards the end of the year that she noticed where the players were on the other team and where to put the ball in order to get a point...I look forward to a couple of the girls that will be back again with me next year!” - Coach Nicole Schrauben, JV Volleyball Team

The Varsity team ended the season, “22-18-3. There were several games that stood out, but our most memorable was likely our final game in District Semi's verse Fowler. All of the girls played extremely hard and several had stand out performances of the year that game. They definitely finished the season with a lot of fight! Annie Gunderman showed a lot of growth not only in her play but also in her leadership skills. Samee Teachworth also made a lot of progress this year as an all-around player. Several of the girls stepped into new or big rolls this year and had a lot of success. Leah Cook and Ally Florian consistently worked hard and I think pushed each other in a lot of ways to improve throughout the year. Karley Beachnau gained a lot of confidence and improved with her consistency as well. We ended up finishing 7th in [our] conference this year. We beat Webberville in 4 in the first round of districts and lost to Fowler in 4 in semis. I am really looking forward to bringing back court experience next year. We were quite young in terms of players that had a lot of game experience, so next year we will have several players that had key [roles] in the starting line up this year returning. This makes a big difference in pressure games/situations. I am also looking forward to returning players that have good chemistry and a drive to succeed.” - Coach Heidi Wenzel, Varsity Volleyball Team

PHOTOS: Courtesy of St. Patrick Catholic School DISCLOSURE: When not writing for The Portland Beacon, Jordan Smith teaches high school science at St. Patrick Catholic School.