'Even more incredible': Ferndale junior high volleyball team makes history without dropping a set during 19-0 campaign
· Yahoo Sports
The 2025 Ferndale Area junior high volleyball team produced a season for the ages.
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Coaches and athletes within the program were unsure if the 2026 Yellow Jackets could replicate a similar campaign with athletes learning new positions on the fly along with adjusting to a new coaching staff.
Fast forward to Wednesday, when Ferndale swept Portage and finished 19-0 without dropping a set, winning all 38. The Yellow Jackets are believed to be the first junior high volleyball team to go undefeated and not lose a set the entire season, according to coach Joey Camut.
“There was a lot of transition,” Camut said. “We lost our two main setters. They ended up moving up to varsity because they lost their setters for the year. We had no setter coming into this. Alaina (Tallari) was a middle last year. I had to move her to outside. Scarlett (Hale) was our outside. I had to move her to setter, so there was a ton of positions that were being shifted around. Coming in with them being undefeated last year, we were a little nervous with having to compete with that season last year.
“We weren’t sure it was going to happen again. It definitely worked out well. Scarlett adapted very well to setting. Alaina adapted very well to moving outside. I think, for the most part, the team adjusted well.”
Along with Hale and Tallari, the other members of the team are right-side hitter Madelyn Dowdell, middle blocker Layla Duell, outside hitter Elli Geyer, libero Kieran Hyland, middle blocker Isabella Jones, outside hitter Aurora McCord, middle blocker Allison Mihalcik, libero Jordyn Oherrick, right-side hitter Kennedy Orris, setter Maliyah Priest and outside hitter Serenity Ronk. Camut is assisted by Brian Boone.
Despite the moving parts, the Yellow Jackets adapted and overcame adversity with a dominating season. Shade- Shanksville (22) and Windber (20) were the only teams to come within five points of Ferndale in a given set this year.
“We had to move a girl (Hale) from being an outside hitter to being a setter when she never set before,” Camut said. “She was very nervous, but filled the shoes perfectly and that makes this perfect season even more incredible.”
Orris moved from middle to right side, and two middles were moved up from the junior varsity team.
“We’ve had a couple girls switch positions this year from last year,” Tallari said.
“I remember in the summertime while we were practicing, everyone was struggling with how the new positions were, but then once we started working together plus with our coaches’ help, we improved so much.”
Geyer, Hale, Jones, Mihalcik, Oherrick, Orris and Tallari were also members of the 2025 team that went 19-0 and only lost one set. Coach Madison Martin led that squad a year ago. Gracin Wagner and Macie Wagner are filling roles on the WestPAC-champion high school varsity team this year.
‘Life is a journey’
By all accounts, every player made growth by improving individual skills to make the team better collectively.
“I definitely think this was my best year of volleyball in my life just because of the coaches and how amazing they are and how helpful they are,” Oherrick said. “They really take their time to be one-on-one and they really tell you what you’re doing and how to improve. I definitely think we improved by a very large amount.”
Synergy between the coaching staff and players helped the entire program reach another gear.
“They work really well together for being as young as they are,” Boone said. “I coached the JV team. They went 18-1 this year. We lost the first game of the year to Windber, but after that, they went 18-0.
“They picked it up very quickly. Some of them just started this year. Coaches coach differently. He and I have been coaching together for a couple years now. They really adapted to what we wanted to teach them and they really listened to us.”
After Wednesday’s sweep, members of the team were awarded medals by the high school varsity squad.
“It was really cool,” Priest said. “I also like all of the varsity players. I look up to them a lot because all of them are really good and are really nice to all of us. They all give us motivational quotes.”
Priest thanked Hale for helping her make the transition to junior high volleyball at setter.
A quote helped the team focus on the process rather the end results throughout the season.
“Life is a journey, not the destination,” Tallari said. “We’ve been through so many different coaches and players. It’s not just a destination, it’s a journey. It leads on.”
‘Bar was high’
Camut knew expectations were high when he took over the team this year. He made a proclamation before he got to meet his new squad.
“Obviously, the bar was high because they went undefeated last year and they dropped one set,” Camut said. “The only thing we could obviously do was come in and zero sets. I promised them, ‘One thing we’re going to do this year is go undefeated without dropping a single set.’ I said that before I knew any of them. It was a little nerve-wracking, but I was definitely impressed with how they adapted. They adjusted very well. They listen to me and Coach Boone with everything we’re trying to teach them at practice. They’re very resilient. They definitely have the drive and the attitude to win. They didn’t want to lose.”
Team chemistry helped the team soar when adversity did strike in a match.
“Definitely a couple times, some things would drop or not everything would go our way, but if we all just play our game and if we all have energy, then we can win,” Tallari said. “Our chemistry with everyone, that’s the reason that we won. If we didn’t have good chemistry, then it could have been a whole different year.”
Effective communication on the court was a strength of the team.
“I kind of had belief in us because I knew we were such a good team and if we can communicate, we can do it again,” Hyland said. “We have so much team bonding and team communicating. We’re good talking and understanding. We move as a team. I wouldn’t consider us a team anymore. I would consider us more like family. We just bond so much. Our coaches helped us a lot with that.”
Camut believes his team can compete with older squads as well.
“They definitely have good team chemistry,” Camut said. “A lot of them are friends off the court, so I think that helped a lot on the court. Honestly, I’ve taught a ton of 12- to 14-year-old girls for the last three or four years. I’ve coached junior high at three different schools. I think they play like they’re a bunch of 15, 16 and 17-year-olds. I would honestly put them up against a bunch of varsity teams, and I think that they would come out with a win, too.”
‘Strong serve’
What separated Ferndale from the rest of its opponents was strong performance from the service line. Serving with intent and precision gave the team an undeniable edge.
“One of the things we stress a lot is serving,” Boone said. “If you have a strong serve, that’s going to get you started. If you can’t serve, you’re not going to score points.
“Two of the biggest things we do in practice are serving and then passing. We do passing drills with them all the time. We serve hard at them. We don’t lighten up on them at all.”
Oherrick said her team would break away in sets by serving strong.
“I definitely think serving is the biggest thing in junior high volleyball because a lot of the teams you play, they don’t really have the skill level to pass super-hard serves,” Oherrick said. “When you’re serving, the emphasis is really there to get the ball over and place it correctly because whenever we were serving bad, our games were really close. Whenever we were serving good, we beat the teams 25-6, 25-2. We’ve all gone on big serving runs. That really changed the momentum of the game. If we’re down by three points and we get a really good serving run and we get the score to 15-5, we were really hyped.”
Hyland believes the future is bright for the team to keep ascending.
“Our coaches did good at pushing us forward,” Hyland said. “I think that if we push ourselves next year and our coaches do as good as they did this year, we can push ourselves to do it again.”