In his third season as Ashley’s volleyball coach, Casey Hilts hit the jackpot with his volleyball team.
The Bears fell to Sacred Heart Academy 3-1 in the regional final in early November at Coopersville, ending their season at 28-16-3. Three seasons ago, the Ashley volleyball team was 0-32.
Hilt was previously an assistant coach at Alma College. “We did very well and kind of rebuilt that program,” Hilts said. “My head coach took another job. As an assistant coach, you find yourself out of the mix. I knew that Ashley had struggled. But they were down the road, and I wanted to take the challenge of turning them into a program. It was the same at Alma. They had a 3-26 season and we took them to 22-9 the first year there.”
In Hilts’ first year at Ashley, the Bears were 14-21. They were 21-19 last season and then got to the 28-win level. It was the first time since 2000 that any team at Ashley had won a district title, Hilts said.
Hilts was hired at Ashley shortly before the 2011 season started.
“It was teaching them how to play defense.” Hilts said. “It was the bulk of everything we tried to do. We had a couple of kids that could hit the ball over the net a little bit, but nobody who could win a game for us. It was about making ourselves competitive. In high school volleyball, so many times one team plays until one team loses. This year, we finally got to the stage where we could go out and compete where you actually have the offense. If you play good defense, you can usually be competitive with anybody. That first season, that’s what it was all about.”
His second year at Ashley, Hilts had a chance to work with his girls during the off-season. “Between that first and second year, coming into a program like that, what I wanted to do was have the kids enjoy the sport so much,” Hilts said. “My goal was to get the kids to fall in love with it, and once they fall in love with it, they’ll do whatever they have to do to be very good at it. They were having a lot of fun and winning some games.”
Ashley girls started playing AAU volleyball. The physical conditioning part started taking root when Liza Gross joined Hilts’ staff as assistant coach.
Coming into this season, Hilts was confident that the Bears had plenty of potential, with the return of several three-year varsity players.
“I had 17 years of returning varsity experience,” he said. “It allowed us to turn our offense up.”
Ashley was led against Sacred Heart, a fellow Mid-State Activities Association member, by Sierra Belongia with eight kills; Meggan Andrews with four aces, eight kills and 17 digs; Megan Seifert with 24 assists; and Kelsey Smith with seven kills. Andrews and Smith are middle hitters.
“Sierra became the third [attacker] that forced teams to not focus on the other two,” Hilts said.
Seifert, the setter, was the quarterback of the team. She set for a Haslett team during the off-season. Smith and Andrews also played for that team, Hilts said. “They had the opportunity to play with some outstanding players.”
Hilts said the program is designed to try to have competitive teams each season. “We’re heading in that direction,” he said. “We’re going to struggle a little bit in the beginning. By the end of the season, I expect next year’s team to be at or above the level we finished with. [Sierra] will be one of those kids coaches want to know about.”