Katarina DiBiasio, Zoee Kear and Morgan Haney pose for a photo after practice at Monroe Central High School.
PARKER CITY — It was the second week of the 2014 season, and the Monroe Central Golden Bears volleyball team had already won more games than it did in 2013. This Aug. 28 evening, though, represented a turning point for the program.
The Golden Bears were at Northeastern facing what first-year coach Kyle Garrett called “the most hostile crowd I’ve ever seen.” As Garrett recalls, fans were cussing at his players and nothing was being done about it. Garrett knows hostile, too, as he was a member of many boisterous student sections at Wapahani when he was in high school. But never had he seen anything remotely close to this crowd.
After Monroe Central’s business-like sweep, the Golden Bears got the heck out of there. Near the end of the match, Garrett turned to the team’s bus driver and said, “Go start the bus, let’s get our stuff on there and get out of here. I don’t want to hang around here.”
“I remember the crowd being so obnoxious, just mocking all of us,” says senior Morgan Haney. “It just got us fired up, and we were out to win. It just lit a fire within us that I didn’t even know we had. It was like, ‘Wow, we can actually do that.’”
It was just one nonconference win in August, but from where the Golden Bears were just a few years ago—when seniors Zoee Kear, Lauren Greer, Emmarae Roberts and Haney were freshmen—it represented a turning point.
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Monroe Central had found its footing as a program with Matt Redwine coaching the varsity and Jared Richardson, now the head coach at Wapahani, coaching the JV. The Golden Bears won a sectional in 2010 and seemed to be on the rise. But the program regressed under Kelsey Brandl, who played volleyball for Ball State from 2008-11.
Players quit, and the ones who stayed complained about the practices. Monroe Central went winless in 2012 and won just seven matches the next season. Junior Katarina DiBiasio, now the team’s best player, seriously considered transferring to Delta after her freshman season. And who could blame her? She wanted to be part of a program that cared about volleyball as much as she did.
So what stopped DiBiasio and others from leaving the program? The answer lies in the gear shop at Munciana’s headquarters—where Kear’s mother, Renee Haney, works. Garrett had been coaching club volleyball with Munciana for several years, so Renee Haney recommended he apply. Garrett got the job and set out to change the culture. The coaching staff includes wife Crystal Garrett (former coach at Union) as an assistant, JV coach Misti Stevens and Ethan Jacobs as a JV assistant.
“Once Kyle came in and Misti came in, everything just took a turn for the better,” says DiBiasio, who plays for Munciana and ended any thoughts about transferring when Garrett was hired. “Kids were quitting left and right, and they weren’t interested anymore. I just owe it to Kyle, Misti and Crystal because they stuck with us, and they haven’t given up on us. They strive to make us better.”
But that took time.
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Coming off a 7-25 season, Garrett began last year with talent to work with, but it was more about changing the mindset in a program that had become accustomed to losing. Admittedly “very intense” and “an extreme competitor,” Garrett didn’t mince words when he felt he wasn’t getting maximum effort. That was somewhat of a shock to the Golden Bears.
Kear broke down and cried on the court several times, something that had never happened before. Garrett felt bad about it, but he was trying to make a point: he can live with mistakes, as long as the players are going 100 percent. If they’re not, he says he can’t work with that. That he would do that to Kear, now a team captain along with DiBiasio, was even more impactful.
“He made a point to us that he was going to try to break us and rebuild us,” Kear says. “Honestly, I think it worked. He’ll yell at me now but I don’t get upset because it’s Kyle and I know he just really loves the game and gets intense. He’s not trying to personally offend us; he knows the potential we have, and he’s just trying to push us.”
Adds Haney: “He definitely broke me last year. I cried so many times.”
Now the upperclassmen are trying to relay that message to a talented freshmen class that includes Jordyn Barga, Samantha DiBiasio, Miranda Haney, Mikayla Fields and Allison Hoening. Just let Garrett break you down, because it will pay off.
And it has for Monroe Central this season. After the Golden Bears finished 19-13 last season, including taking a set off eventual state champion Wes-Del (the Warriors went 35-3 last season, losing only 17 sets), they’re primed to climb even higher. The Golden Bears beat Burris in five sets Aug. 20 and swept Cowan, rising to No. 8 in Class 2A.
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Garrett didn’t even play volleyball when he attended Wapahani in the early 2000s; he was an outfielder and pitcher on the baseball team. But he gave the sport a try at Calumet College of St. Joseph, and fell in love with it. He was an outside hitter and actually roomed with Richardson there. Now, the two will be in the same sectional.
“Being from Wapahani, he was taught to compete,” says Richardson, also a Wapahani graduate who was a year behind Garrett in school. “He’s one of those guys who wants to learn and learn, soaking up different things from everyone. And he’s not afraid to try things. He gives you a different look at the game outside the box, doing a lot of good things over there.”
The strides Monroe Central (6-4) has made this season will be put to the test in the postseason as part of a loaded sectional with Wapahani (6-2) and Wes-Del (8-1) — each of which has spent time at No. 1 in 2A this season.
Monroe Central scrimmaged Wapahani over the summer, with mixed results. As Garrett tells it, a talented Raiders squad handled the Golden Bears most of the night. Then the teams played a set to 15 to end it, with regular rules and no stoppages of play. Monroe Central won 15-11, according to Garrett.
“After that, he came up to me and told me, ‘You guys are going to be tough,’” Garrett recalls. “I just said, ‘Thanks, I’m glad you recognize it.’”
It’s only a matter of time until more coaches do too.
Contact sports features writer Ryan O’Gara at (765) 213-5829. Follow him on Twitter @RyanOGaraTSP .