Tall and Proud: Yellowjackets enjoying first district title despite season of mishaps

BY DAN STICKRADT

SENIOR EDITOR

dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com

AUBURN HILLS — Looking over the balcony at her volleyball team, Valerie Blanchette shouts the phrase “T.P.”

The encouraging words stand for Tall and Proud, and are reminder to shrug off the play, stand back up and try again.

That’s what the volleyball team at Auburn Hills Avondale has done in recent weeks. The Yellowjackets have overcome boatloads of adversity to finish strong in the 2010 season.

“I can’t say enough about this team and what they’ve been able to accomplish these past couple of weeks,” said Blanchette.

Blanchette is in her 11^th season as the volleyball coach at Avondale. Blanchette suffered a back injury at work back on Sept. 16. That was the just the first in a long series of turning points and twist and turns.

Blanchette had to eventually turn over the in-practice and game-day coaching to assistants Maria Bartolone and Kelly Janes because of the injury.

“They have done a great job,” said Blanchette of her program’s assistants. “They have kept this team focused and playing well.”

There are eight seniors on this team and five juniors. At 18-17-2, Avondale is having one of its better seasons to date. This is also the first time the team has played this late in the season, even with some injuries.

Last week during the district tournament, senior middle hitter Sarah Becker, who will sign with Black Hawk College in Illinois later this week, went down with a season-ending foot injury. In the district finals against host Waterford Kettering, senior middle Mariah Schroll was taken to the hospital for a possible concussion.

Still, Avondale has fought through its postseason injuries, the loss of its coach, and a season plagued by inconsistencies to advance to the regional round. Avondale defeated Waterford Kettering in three sets last Thursday to win the school’s first district championship in school history.

To put that in perspective, Avondale has never been a school known for its volleyball program. The Yellowjackets have been playing volleyball since the mid-1970s but have had little to show for it in the postseason, always being lumped into a district with powerhouse schools until this season.

“The past few years, we’ve had teams like (Birmingham) Marian in our district. It was always somebody really good,” sighed Blanchette. “We always seemed to draw a team like that in the first or second round.”

Blanchette played on Avondale’s 1984 Metro Conference league championship squad, the last time Avondale won a league title. The district banner has remained empty all of these past four decades.

Andrea Strauss, a three-sport standout, said that this year’s group has been special, finally putting Avondale volleyball on the respect map.

“To win that first district championship in school history, it’s something that I will always remember. All of us will remember this year,” smiled Strauss, who is also a three-point marksman in basketball and an all-state goalkeeper in soccer. “When we look back on our high school days, this will be a highlight, for sure.”

It was at a tournament in mid-October, when the Yellowjackets upset Clinton Township Chippewa Valley in the semifinals and Sterling Heights in the finals to win the Avondale Tournament. Avondale, which only finished 2-5 in the OAA White Division and fifth in the OAA-White Jamboree, has been on a roll since, winning matches and playing in marathon matches in games they have lost. They have been a tough opponent, to say the least.

“I think that tournament was the turning point,” offered Blanchette. “We came back to win the gold after being down with a big deficit. I think we were down 24-17 to Sterling Heights and we still found a way to win the championship for the gold (division). That I think really kicked in something with this team. I thought they could be a fabulous team and I think coming back from that type of deficit, working really hard together, they started to believe. From that point, they have been a different team.”

Kaitlyn Tullock, a senior outside hitter, said that Avondale is a team on a mission.

“To make school history is awesome,” said Tullock, who like Strauss, is a team captain. “The tournament we hosted and won was the turning point of the season. It gave us a lot of confidence. When we were down to a team ranked in the state … to come back on a team like that, we proved that we can play with anybody. We feel like we can win (on Tuesday) if we play well.”

Avondale is playing this late in the season for the first time, and drew Lake Orion as its Class A regional semifinal opponent Tuesday at Oxford. The Yellowjackets will tangle with the Dragons at 5:30 p.m. with Birmingham Marian, the defending state champions, facing Southfield in Game 2.

Although Avondale is the underdog in its game and overall in a touch regional, Tullock believes that no opponent should take the Yellowjackets lightly.

“I think we can give Lake Orion a run. We have to believe we can beat them,” said Tullock. “We know it’s possible.”

Avondale took OAA-White Division champion Rochester Adams deep into five games last month, and Lake Orion defeated that same Adams squad last week in a district semifinal in a five-game marathon match that went down to the end.

Becker, who went down with that injury in the district-opening win over Waterford Mott, said that they new-found team commodity helped them claim their first district medals.

“I know that winning district to me mean a lot, even sitting on the bench with the injury,” said Becker. “I sat there and couldn’t get up and cheer. I sat there and smiled and could see my teammates’ faces. After the (district finals), they all came up to me and told me how much they loved me.”

The team unity went a step further, as the coaching staff and players delivered Scholl her medal at the hospital later Thursday night. Schroll is expected to return Tuesday for the regional semifinal.

“We made sure she was a part of it,” said Blanchette, hoisting the trophy five days after the tournament win while watching her team practice from afar. “We gave her the medal while she was lying in a bed.”

For Blanchette, who has several third- and fourth-year players on her roster, the fruit of her labor is finally being realized, even though she is limited in what she can do in terms of coaching.

“I tried (to coach), but it’s too hard,” said Blanchette, who gives her coaches practice assignments on e-mail or on the phone. “It was too much to be there on the sidelines. It’s too much (of a risk). But my assistant coaches have been great.”

And so has Avondale in the postseason, winning its first district and heading into the regional round, ready to take on the world and everything it throws in the Yellowjackets’ direction.

“We’ll be ready,” smiled Strauss, a four-year player. “Winning districts is so big for us. I won one as a freshman with soccer but I was only called up late in the season. For us seniors, this is our last shot and we finally won the district.”

The Yellowjackets have done so standing “Tall and Proud.”

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Category: Auburn Hills Avondale, Prep Wraps