11/07/2025
There have most definitely been tears at the end of the past couple district tournaments for the Lakewood varsity volleyball team.
There were some more of those tears Thursday night in the Wayland Union High School gymnasium, but this time they were the good kind of tears. And this time it’s not the end for the Vikings.
Lakewood swept through three sets against Otsego in the MHSAA Division 2 District Final, winning by the scores of 25-18, 25-23, 25-18, for its first district championship since 2022. There are programs for which that wouldn’t feel like such a long drought. Lakewood isn’t one of those programs.
As the initial celebration settled down and the Vikings awaited their district championship medals and trophies, Viking senior setter Emma Duffy spent some time with her face buried in her hands being embraced by a teammate or two. After getting her district medal from athletic direction Matt Aldrich, she certainly left some tears on the shoulder of head coach Brooke Francisco’s khaki blazer.
“I was a ball girl for a long time in the Lakewood volleyball program,” Duits said. “We went to Kellogg Arena every year. We were really good. That is the expectation. You go and you win a district. You go and you win a regional. And you get to Kellogg Arena and you see how far you can get.
“My freshman year was the last time that we won a district title. We lost in regional finals. Then we fell short in district finals, and last season also, and this was something I really wanted to do my senior year. I wanted to get that title back, because that is something I never really got to play for myself. It was amazing. We came out here and we swept them. That is amazing. We are playing the best Lakewood volleyball that we have played all season right now. I am so proud of us and I am just so happy that it happened.”
Duffy tied for the team lead in kills with nine.
“She is a true-in-heart Lakewood volleyball girl. She ball-girled for us, was a phenomenal ball girl. She worked her way up," Francisco said. "We haven’t won districts since she was a freshman. She knew we wanted this. We look at the district as soon as it is posted, and the teams we saw we were like we can do this. This has been our end goal.
“But we finally have everybody, and I think their relationships are finally coming together. It is a little late, but now is the time and it looked really good. I think Emma feels that too. She knows they worked hard and earned it.”
Sophomore Johanna Duits tied Duffy for the team lead with nine kills. Fellow sophomore Ahlana Thomas had eight kills. Junior setter Camyla Copelin had six kills. Duffy and Copelin led the Vikings in assists, a couple more girls in a long line of talented setters for Lakewood. Copelin said Duffy’s confidence and knowledge on the court has helped build her as a player.
“Freshmen year, I came in knowing I was going to get a lot of playing time,” Duffy said. “I would get in our league, because we handled our league pretty easy back then. I knew that and I knew I was going to get better in practice. I knew watching all the older girls. I had Skylar Bump and Abby Pickard ahead of me. They’re really great, and I owe a lot to them as role models just watching them. I know Skylar was here tonight. I know Abby is playing right now in college. They’re just great role models for me and I kind of got to have a front row seat for that. That is something that was really special for me. And I think that really got me to how I am today, my attitude as a setter, and my role as a leader on the court.”
It’s the first district championship for the rest of the roster including fellow seniors Matti Aldrich, Peyton Federau and Eva Stowell.
“It’s crazy. It’s a crazy feeling,” said Copelin.
“Honestly, it could have been our last game. Everyone put everything out on the line. We didn’t let their warm-ups get in the way whatsoever.”
“They were hitting pretty good,” she added. “They have some huge hitters, and our team is under-sized, but we didn’t let that bother us. We knew we were going to go win.”
It’s also the first district championship for Francisco as head coach of the program she won a state championship with as a player in 2012. She is in her second season leading the Viking varsity.
Lakewood assistant coach Chelsea Brehm, a former all-state player herself for Lakewood, said Thursday’s victory was equal parts the effort of the girls on the court and the effort Francisco put in to have the girls throughly prepared for everything they would see happening on the other side of the court against the towering Bulldog squad.
Lakewood had some adversity throughout the season with illness, injury and absences, but on Thursday all the adversity seemed to be on the other side of the court. The Vikings basically led each set from start to finish.
“They executed very well,” Francisco said. “It was just about finding the gaps in their defense when we could. Knowing they’re big, we either had to go high and swing off hands or you had to find the holes, and they did one or the other. That is how we scored. We didn’t have many scores where they didn’t touch the ball. I mean, they’re big and they’re up. It was finding those holes and going at it.”
A Copelin service run with a couple of kills by Duffy took the Viking lead from 19-17 to 24-18 late in set one.
Otsego had a couple moments leading by a point or two in the middle of set two, but a block by Thomas and freshman outside hitter Zoey Schmitt evened the set at 13-13 and then Federau went on a service run that took the Vikings to a 20-13 lead. Copelin had a couple kills, and everything the Bulldogs tried the Vikings had an answer for. Bulldog junior setter Maddy Littel tried a second-ball dump 19-13 during that stretch, but the Vikings kept the ball off the floor and Duffy answered with one of her own that found an opening.
The Bulldogs rallied to get within 24-23 late before the Vikings took the win. Set three was all Lakewood. Bulldog head coach Dani Littel called her first timeout with her team down 5-1, and then tried a second one down 13-5. That second time, she had her girls just stay out on the floor and the Bulldog players worked to try and figure things out themselves.
As good as the attack was for Lakewood and finding some holes, the stellar defensive effort by the Vikings stole the show with junior libero Hayden Bump, Copelin, Duffy, Federau, Aldrich, Stowell, and everyone really, going this way and that to keep the ball up.
“They worked very hard,” Francisco said. “You could tell when they walked on this court that they were not going to lose. They refused to lose. They frustrated Otsego, because they couldn’t find a kill because we were digging everything. Even if it wasn’t a pretty dig, everybody was hustling just to keep the ball in play and give us another opportunity to score.”
Now the Vikings have another opportunity to play volleyball this fall in the MHSAA Division 2 Regional Semifinals at South Christian High School Tuesday, Nov. 11. They’ll take on Grand Rapids Catholic Central the 7 p.m. regional semifinal after a 5 p.m. showdown between No. 3 Grand Rapids Christian and No. 5 Holland Christian.
