Vestaburg High School - Wolverine Yearbook (Vestaburg, MI)

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!! AIMING FOR AN ACE. Serving extrao- dinaire Rachel Butler concentrates hard on driv- ing straight through the ball in the second set in the match against Sacred Heart. VARSITY VOLLEYBALL — FRONT ROW: Jennifer Bissell, Shawn Antes. Michele Stratton. Michelle Keeler. BACK ROW: Coach Joanne Rhode. Jenny Stearns. Chris Johnston. Amy Hodges. Terri Kahlo. Denise Every. JUNIOR VARSITY VOLLEYBALL — FRONT ROW: Rachel Butler. Melissa Beard. Shannon Kloeckner, Nancy Palmer. Pam Martin. Raedene Gifford. BACK ROW: Heidi Erikson, Tonya LaPaugh, Heather Dailey, Jennifer Bennett. Odessa Benavidez. Kristy Kloeckner. Shelly Johnson. !! SETTING IT FOR THE SPIKE. Veteran setting Michelle Stratton gives another set, and another sure point to the front row spikers in the match against Beal City. The Bumper: It took many spikes, bumps, and an all-around hard effort, but the Varsity Volleyball team won their opening match against Midland Christian. The Spiker: In the match against Ashley, the phrase spike was given a new name as the JV bumpers thrashed the Bears in 2 straight. The Blowout: It took 2 out of 3 sets, as the JV Wolverines trounced Sacred Heard with tough defense and brilliant serving. Ups and Downs — Sports ! 19a

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 Volleyball Varsity JV W Midland Christian L Montabella L St. Charles L Merrill L Ithaca L Lakeview W W Sacred Heart W L Belding L L G. R. Christian L L Saranac L L Carson City L L Ashley W L Portland W L Ashley W L Montabella L L Sacred Heart W L Central Montcalm L L Beal City W Overall 11:2-16 Overall: 7-6 !! CRUNCH TIME. Sophomore spiker Kristy Kloeckner crushes the ball down onto an opposing Beal City player in the second set of the match. ET IT, SPIKE IT BURN THE NETS by Amy Hodges The volleyball teams might have had a bad season on paper but if you went to their games you would have seen that they gave some teams a challenge. Under the first year coaching of Miss Rhode, and Miss Neff the volleyball teams were young and inexperienced. But de- spite all this, the team started the season on a positive note. “We weren’t really sure how things would go, but the girls worked hard to do better,” said Miss Rhode. Both volleyball teams set goals at the beginning of the season. One of the goals they had was to improve their bumps and serves during every game. Because there were many teams having practice the same night, the varsity volley- ball team had to share the gym with the JV’s. “It really didn’t bother me, but it would have been nicer if we had the whole gym to ourselves,” said Michele Stratton. Running laps and doing net jumps were the girls’ punishment for missing a ball or not getting a serve over in the game or practice. “I hated running laps,” explained Mi- chelle Keeler. “She made us run too much.” The season wasn’t all bad. There were good times, too. Practices were hated by most of the girls but sometimes they were fun. Jenny Stearns always provided good times by making faces at Miss Rhode or hitting the ball on the ceiling when serving. Every once in a while the varsity would scrimage the JV players; but spent most of the time goofing around. After the JV season was over, the varsi- ty had the whole gym to themselves. Most of the girls agreed that it was more fun after the JV players were gone. “It was a lot better once the JV season was over,” said Amy Hodges. We had a lot more time at the net and more space to practice in.” Miss Rhode and the JV coach Miss Neff got their practicing in when the varsity players scrimaged among themselves. Be- cause there weren’t enough varsity players they had to play. Riding the bus was the most fun of the volleyball season. On the way home from the volleyball districts at Potterville, the girls got a surprise. “When we were coming home, we all had the windows down, and a car load of guys went by and we yelled, but they mooned us,” said Michelle Stratton. Miss Rhode always told the girls that they talked more on the bus than on the court. Even though the season was not a win- ning one for the varsity and JV volleyball teams, they did reach their goal of improv- ing as a team and as themselves through- out the season. !! MAKING THE SAVE. Junior Tonee Keller makes the save and sets the ball for a spike in the home match against Lakeview. 18a ! Volleyball

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 JV FRESHMAN BASKETBALL JV FRESHMAN VHS OPR VHS OPP. 44-47 Midland Christian 35- 62 Belding 52-58 Central Montcalm 37-47 44-77 Montabella 42- 51 48- 73 Saranac 48-64 Portland 55-61 Carson City 32- 42 45-71 Lakeview 63-74 Montabella 56-65 65-62 Ashley 52- 53 Belding 56-73 Central Montcalm 63- 57 74-94 Lakeview 57-66 69-87 Beal City 29-35 34-49 Saranac 60-57 44-55 Portland 54-59 Sacred Heart 61-53 49-63 Carson City 59-53 Sacred Heart 36-43 74-83 Beal City 44-45 Fulton 57-70 Shepherd 55-61 League: 0-14 Overall: 2-18 Overall: 3-10 !! BREAKING DOWN THE BASE- LINE. Dave Scott uses his body as well as his footwork to push past a Saranac player for an easy basket in the home loss to the Redskins. 73-48. OOKING FOR THE BRIGHTER SIDE bp Shay Throop Hey, throw me my shorts! Give me back my shirt! Hand me my jock. No way germ, get your own jock . . . These are the sounds of the Vestaburg High School freshman basketball team before a game. Even though 1986 was the first year Vestaburg had a freshman team, the ’86- ’87 season was not without good times and catchy trends such as knee braces. “A lot of us started wearing knee braces, just for looks I guess.” said Matt Mortensen. The freshman players really worked to- gether to form and play as a team. “The coach looked at our talent as a team and put us together so we could have the best possible combination of talent,” said Tim Parrish. Something that proved to be very inter- esting were the rides to away games. They would ride to the games in L. Jay Hum- phrey’s van and the school car. Tim Parrish said, “The rides to away games were alright because we all brought 20a ! JV and Freshman Basketball headphones and we had time to get psyched up. It was a lot better than riding the bus.” Good times yes, but when the tradition- al “Let’s go Red” pre-game cheers started the team was all business. Winning three of their 13 games was a good start for a team that had a new coach and had never played high school basketball. A team was that was just as fresh as the new freshman team was the JV team. Al- though the tenth graders had played high school basketball they had new offensive and defensive schemes. With the help of the two returning ju- niors Sam Wrisley and Dave Scott, the JV men set out to have a winning season. A new season brought new trends, per- sonalities and practices. Not just the prac- tices for honing game skill, but new prac- tices of behavior before, after and during the games. “Practice was pretty all messing around and not much work got done,” said Dave Freeman. There was a new season and a new coach — a fresh start brought new trends and fads. “After they had announced the starters name, we huddled up on the court and screamed some unprintable cheers,” said Dave Freeman. The ride to games proved to be most interesting with everybody messing around or listening to headphones or get- ting ready for the up-coming battle. The rides were nothing but goof-off sessions to and from games. Even if the team lost, they still found a way to have fun after a defeat on the long ride back to Vestaburg. With all the new trends and the way the season went, it proved to be a winning season in spite of the losing record.