GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — “Northern historically has had good players. And I think what has made the difference is that in the last five years we’ve worked hard to develop the youth. Work with the 5th and 6th graders in getting them sound fundamentals,” said FHN head volleyball coach Dale Wilhelm.
Huskies volleyball is seeing that development pay off.
“When all 12 or 13 of your kids can play ball, it makes you a pretty competitive team,” said Wilhelm.
Forest Hills Northern is currently ranked 4th by MIVCA in division one and has just one loss In their first 15 games. A loss against #2 Northville is what they’ll use as a measuring stick.
“I think it just showed us what we need to work on. And that we can, that we’re up there with the really good teams. And that we are good and we can do good things. So it just gave us some confidence and some stuff to work on to get us there,” said senior outside hitter Kennedy Louisell.
“Just good experience to get exposed to a top level team like that early on and we learned a few things on what we can do better. And it’s nice to learn them early in the year and we’ll work on those areas and hopefully we’ll get a chance to play them again later in the year,” said Wilhelm.
Because they’ve been playing together for so long, senior setter Lauren Hallas says they’re on the court chemistry makes a huge impact on their game.
“I think that just our relationships make the team different. I know a lot of teams that struggle with those relationships and trusting each other but since we’ve been playing together for so long it just comes really easy for us,” said Hallas.
The Huskies have two state championships in program history. They had their season ended in the district finals last year, but hope their explosive offense will get them closer to state in 2022.
“Well I think the thing that catches your eye in volleyball is offense. And we have four or five kids that can really hit the ball well so most team are fortunate if they have two or three so I think the thing that approaches an opponents eye is that we can bring it from just about any position on the court,” said Wilhelm.
“Definitely mixing up our offense. It’s something we usually have to work on with our outside hitters being as good as they are. We just have to start trusting our other hitters in knowing that they can do what everyone else does on this team,” said Hallas.
For Kennedy Louisell, she’s about to hit a milestone that every player hopes to achieve. 1500 kills.
“I think it’s just really exciting. Really fun being able to see that number and really add up over the years I guess which is awesome,” said Louisell.
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