VOLLEYBALL: KML grad thriving at Marquette

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Nov. 29, 2014

KML grad thriving at Marquette

Niemann becoming elite player

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

MILWAUKEE — Meghan Niemann, a 2012 Kettle Moraine Lutheran graduate, and her Marquette volleyball teammates weren’t liking how the first two sets were going so they decided to change it up.

They changed uniforms.

Niemann is used to changing things up.

The Golden Eagles rallied from an 0-2 deficit to tie the match and came up just short in their quest for a repeat Big East Conference Tournament championship, losing in five sets to Seton Hall on Friday, 25-23, 25-12, 19-25, 18-25, 15-11, in the semifinal of the conference tournament at the Al McGuire Center.

Seton Hall will play Creighton today for the conference tournament championship and an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.

Marquette was the defending tournament champion.

“I thought we got out-executed in Game 5,” Marquette coach Ryan Theis said. “I tip my hat off to Seton Hall.”

After a 10-minute break after the second set, the Golden Eagles trotted onto the court in new uniforms. For whatever reason, it worked as they tied the match by winning the third and fourth sets.

In the fifth set, Marquette led 3-2. Then tied at 5, Seton Hall took the lead for good. Marquette nearly pulled off the comeback as it trailed 13-11 in the fifth set, forcing a timeout by Seton Hall. But a service error and a kill gave the Pirates the victory.

“It would’ve been nice to not be in that situation,” Theis said.

For Niemann, who had seven kills, three solo blocks and seven block assists, just to be here is something special. She has gone from a little- known barely recruited volleyball player to one of the top players in the nation.

Coming out of KML, Niemann drew little interest for a volleyball scholarship, especially from Division I programs. Even Marquette’s interest was minimal. Bond Shymansky, Marquette’s coach at the time, told her that he doubted whether she could play at that level.

In one way, it was easy to overlook Niemann. After all, she didn’t start playing volleyball until she got to eighth grade.

In another way, it was puzzling as to why she was being overlooked. She was an All-Conference performer in three sports and a state champion in the high jump.

What turned Shymansky onto Niemann her impressive competitive spirit. By the time he realized it, a scholarship wasn’t available for Niemann and she was ready to head to Martin Luther College in Minnesota.

Then it all changed.

Shymansky came up with an offer Niemann couldn’t pass up. Niemann was offered a spot in the program as a walk-on, earning a scholarship the following season. Niemann took the offer. It has been an unbelievable blessing.

“It has been an experience of a lifetime,” she said. “I couldn’t asked for anything different. I’m so blessed.”

Unfortunately for Niemann, there was some resentment for her to go to Marquette.

She dreamed of going to Martin Luther College, which KML is a feeder school for, to become a teacher. She seemed pretty set on that path. Then, the offer from Marquette, a Catholic university, came along.

Niemann prayed for days trying to figure out the right path.

“It was really tough,” she said. “I had a lot of great support around me, my parents, my teachers at KML. I’m happy with my decision.”

Niemann, who was the WIAA Division 2 state champion in high jump as a senior, redshirted in 2012 and absorbed coaching like a sponge.

In 2013, as a redshirt freshman, she was first-team All-Big East, an All-Big East Tournament pick and an honorable mention American Volleyball Coaches Association All-American.

This season, she was a preseason All-Big East pick, and on Tuesday, the conference announced its All-Conference teams and Niemann, once again, got a first-team All-Big East nod.

“It was great,” she said, adding it was neat to have two teammates also get recognized on the first team, which included Autumn Bailey getting the Player of the Year award.

“I had no idea I would be at this point,” Niemann said, adding when she held the Big East championship trophy is when she realized she made the right choice.

This year, the Golden Eagles got a new coach — Ryan Theis.

Theis was hired in the offseason after a successful six-year run at the University of Ohio of the Mid- American Conference. At Ohio, Theis went 144-57 and entered this season with the 18th-best active winning percentage in NCAA Division I. The Bobcats went to the NCAA Tournament four times under Theis.

He’s taken Niemann’s game to another level.

“Ryan’s always had very good blocking teams,” Niemann said. “He changed a lot of my techniques and worked with me a lot on reading (offenses).”

“When she gets going, we’re tough to handle,” Thies said of Niemann. “She a leader on the team, a motivational leader.”

Of course she can’t help but thank Shymansky, who is now the head coach at the University of Iowa, for what he did for Niemann. He changed her life.

“It’s too good to be true,” Niemann said, adding she’s enjoying the journey.

GOLF: Snow time like the present to golf

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Nov. 21, 2014 (A1)

Snow time like the present to golf

Frigid temps don’t stop 2 men

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

If there is snow on the ground and someone is crazy enough, West Bend Lakes Golf Club will let people wander onto the course and squeeze in nine or 18 holes.

Put Kewaskum’s Dale Waala and West Bend’s Jeff Werner on the list of crazy people.

They’ve heard it enough this week.

When asked how many people have told him he was crazy, Werner replied, “Including my wife?”

To them, it’s just another day on the links.

“Pretty much nothing stops us from golfing,” Waala said. “It was another day really. We go out pretty much every weekend. So that’s what we did.”

Waala and Werner are longtime friends who play golf with a group of about 10 people on a regular basis.

They’ll often play for a couple bucks on each hole. They will also play cards together.

But on Sunday, with the temperatures below the freezing mark and about a half-inch or inch of snow on the ground, Waala and Werner were the only ones brave enough to take on the cold and the cold white powdery stuff spread throughout the golf course.

“We had the golf course to ourselves,” Waala said with a smile.

“At this time of the year, we don’t get many chances to go out,” Werner said. “It was only an inch or half an inch.”

To them, it wasn’t that bad.

They played with yellow golf balls — after all, golf balls are regularly white, so that wouldn’t work. They also had brooms in their golf bags, which Werner joked thankfully the broom didn’t count as a club in the bag. Rules state golfers aren’t allowed to have more than 14 clubs in a bag.

They didn’t have to leave a club behind.

“It fits right in the bag,” Werner said with a smile.

They didn’t ride on a cart, either. They walked, which is what they do when they golf during better weather.

“If we were driving a cart, we would’ve been colder,” Waala said.

“I had a blast; we had a blast,” he added. “I wasn’t that cold. I’ve golfed in warmer weather and felt colder.”

They did wear an extra layer or two of clothing to keep warm. That complicated the round a bit.

“It is a little different because you have a few more layers on,” Waala said. “I don’t like long sleeves when I’m golfing.”

The duo also golfed Saturday, but it was a bit warmer and there wasn’t snow.

They thought if it wasn’t too bad Sunday, they were going to golf, which they did.

For each hole, they swept the tee box where they would hit their tee shot and did that for each ensuing stroke.

If they miss-hit a stroke, some pain lingered.

“It’s like if you’re playing baseball and don’t hit the sweet spot, it stings,” Werner said.

When they got to the green, things got a bit tricky.

On the green, they located their ball and swept a path for the ball to the pin.

“We made a couple 10- or 12-footers,” Werner said.

Putting through the snow can be a way to improve their accuracy. If they were off and the ball hit some snow, the ball stopped.

“It kind of forces you to hit it straight,” Werner said.

So how’d they do?

Waala said he shot higher than 100, which is about 15 strokes off his average round. Werner was about 20 strokes off his average round of in the 70s.

Werner got a par on the first hole to provide the lone bright spot. After that there were a lot of 8s and 9s on the scorecard.

“It’s not always about the score,” Waala said, adding the day was more about the experience and having a good time.

However, there were times they were disappointed with their shots, like any golfer often is.

“I really didn’t expect a whole lot,” Waala said. “I expected bad shots that day.”

There is a cut-off to their golf obsession: temperatures below 20 and more than an inch or 2 of snow.

“If it warms up, I believe we’ll be out there again,” Waala said.

FOOTBALL: Thank you military

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Nov. 12, 2014

Thank you military

Area service members honored by Packers

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

Heather Mendoza had plenty of reasons to be nervous for Sunday’s Green Bay Packers game against the Chicago Bears at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

The 29-year-old Hartford native sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the game, which was seen on national television, during the NFL’s annual celebration of the U.S. Armed Forces — Salute to Service for Veterans Day weekend.

Mendoza, a specialist, has served in the Army for 12 years. She is a vocalist for the 484th Army Band with the Army Reserve in Milwaukee.

“I was so honored to be chosen,” Mendoza said. “I didn’t realize it was going to be a nationally televised anthem. I was already honored to sing for the veterans.”

There were attempts to throw her off, but not intentionally, though.

First it was the cameramen standing in front of her. Then she saw her face on the Jumbotron. But the event that almost broke her was seeing Marine Sgt. Michael Kimmerling surprise his pregnant wife on the field. They hadn’t seen each other since March and he wasn’t scheduled to come home from his fourth tour of duty for another couple of weeks.

Kimmerling and his wife, Cassie, learned they were expecting two weeks before he was deployed.

“I wanted to cry,” Mendoza said.

Then it was time to step onto the stage or, in this case, the field at Lambeau Field on national television before the NFL’s longest-running rivalry was to kickoff to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” on Veterans Day weekend.

Still, worrying about messing up a lyric was far from the mind of the 2003 Hartford Union graduate. She was more worried about missing a note, which she admitted she did a couple times.

“I think it went pretty well,” Mendoza said.

“I think I was pretty nervous until about halfway (through the song),” she added.

Mendoza was not alone as far as Washington County military personnel honored at Sunday’s game. Garrett Yahr, a 2012 Kewaskum High School graduate, was also in attendance.

“It’s really an honor to be here,” Yahr said about an hour before the primetime game featuring the league’s oldest rivalry.

“There’s a lot of people who can’t be here. I’m glad I can take their place.”

Yahr is a member of the Wisconsin National Guard, with his unit stationed in Appleton. He decided he wanted to join the military about his freshman year of high school. At Kewaskum, he played football and baseball, and he wrestled.

He joined the military because he believed he owed something to the United States, to say thank you for the freedoms the country allowed him to have growing up because of the sacrifice by those before him.

Yahr hasn’t gone overseas to serve and isn’t sure if he ever will, but he is prepared if he is called to duty.

“You never know what might happen,” Yahr said.

At halftime, the Alpha Battery 1-121 Field Artillery unit stationed in Afghanistan appeared on the Lambeau Field videoboard via Skype to send a message to their beloved Packers. Some members of that unit’s family was on the field at that moment. Then, the Packers fans in Lambeau and Afghanistan chanted back and forth, “Lambeau” and “Go Pack Go.”

Yahr learned he was going to be attending the game about two weeks ago. When he was asked to attend the game to represent the military, he instantly said yes, absolutely.

“I love the Packers,” he said.

Mendoza was asked to sing the anthem about six weeks ago.

Sgt. 1st Class Richard Fertig sent Mendoza an email asking if she wanted to sing the anthem for the game.

“I was super happy; I wanted to do it,” she said.

“I believe my response was: ‘Hell yeah. What do I have to do?’” Like Mendoza, Yahr was invited to the game as part of the NFL’s Salute to Service initiative, honoring current and former military service men and women.

The last Packers game Yahr went to was when he was younger. So he was eager to represent the armed forces and see the Packers take on the rival Bears. Sunday’s meeting was the 190th in the NFL’s oldest rivalry.

“I’ve been thinking about it all week,” Yahr said.

It was Mendoza’s first Packers game. She was given eight tickets for the game, which went to herself, her husband, mother, fatherin- law, brother and his girlfriend, and two friends. They also got four field passes. It was the first Packers game for most of them, too.

“We got to walk down on the field prior to people being let in,” Mendoza said, adding her fatherin- law, a die-hard Packers fan, was like a kid in a candy store.

At the game, Packers fans held up signs, thanking the military for its previous and continued service.

To be on the field before the game was something beyond the wildest dreams for Mendoza and Yahr.

“It means a lot,” Yahr said. “It does make you feel good.”

“It means so much that they would put together such an awesome event honoring the military,” Mendoza said.

“I love my country,” she added. “I have a lot of family that has served in the military. It’s a great honor.”

Ready the plows

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Nov. 7, 2014 (A1)

Ready the plows

Crews prepare for long days clearing roads

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

Richfield’s Annie Stuettgen is part of a special group of people. Stuettgen has been plowing roads in Richfield for more than 20 years and loves it.

“I want to make the streets safe for the public,” said Stuettgen, 51. “I do enjoy it, knowing I’m getting something accomplished.”

Others in the department feel the same way.

The problem, however, especially in the rural areas of Washington County, finding snowplow truck drivers with that mentality and attitude is hard to come by.

“We’ve had difficulty in recent years, which has led us to start our recruitment earlier than usual,” Richfield Village Administrator Jim Healy said.

Richfield isn’t alone, as many communities throughout the county started as early as August trying to recruit snowplow drivers. The sometimes long hours in less-than-ideal conditions are among the many problems villages, towns and cities throughout the county struggle with when trying to find people willing and able to clear the roads during the winter.

Other issues include the inconvenience of an inconsistent schedule and it costs more than $100 to receive a CDL license.

To make the job appealing, Richfield upped its hourly wage to about $20 from about $15 two years ago.

“The drivers that we have on staff do it because they love it,” Healy said. “They’re life-long residents of Richfield; they enjoy helping their neighbors out.”

That’s why Stuettgen continues to be a snowplow truck driver even as Wisconsin often has some tricky winters with heavy snowfall.

Stuettgen was looking to get a job about 20 years ago. She began working part-time in the parks department. In a matter of weeks, she was elevated to full time and eventually became a snowplow truck driver.

“I enjoy meeting people and I enjoy seeing them,” she said.

“We have a good group of guys,” she added. “There’s a lot of respect that goes between everybody. We all work as a team to get it done. You’re not going to find a better team.”

As one would expect, it’s lonely work.

Drivers are in the trucks alone and, during the heavy snowfalls (8-10 inches), work long hours, which may include through the night. Stuettgen said if it calls for it, the drivers will be in the truck for 16 hours, with minimal breaks.

“I remember winters where we get 10-15 inches of snow every other week,” Stuettgen said. “Last winter was doable. The only thing that was tough was it snowed a little bit every day. There were times I was in the truck, 20 or 30 days in a row.”

Stuettgen admits getting a call at 3 a.m. to get to the shop and get ready to plow is difficult.

“Some days you wake up and say you just want to stay in bed,” she said. “But we’ve all been doing this a while. We do what we have to do.

“At the end of the day, we’re pleased with what we do.”

There are no regulations for how long a driver can stay on the road.

The goal is to get the roads cleared for the major traffic rushes in the morning and evening.

With a larger staff, scheduling will be easier and drivers either won’t have to be called in during the wee hours of the night or the hours aren’t as long. The problem is getting that larger staff.

Healy hopes people considering being a snowplow truck driver remember the good deed they’re doing for their community.

“The people who plow our snow, our part-time workers, are the unsung workers of Richfield,” Healy said. “Their work is going to be greatly appreciated.”

FOOTBALL: Defense gets tough

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Nov. 11, 2014

Defense gets tough

Unit stops run, creates turnovers

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

GREEN BAY — In Sunday’s 55-14 thumping of the rival Chicago Bears, the Green Bay Packers got what they wanted: a fast start to the game and the second half of the season.

The Packers couldn’t have asked for a better start, especially on offense.

But it was the defense that got lost underneath the eye-popping statistics and record night by quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

“I thought the defense set the tone, with the stops and the field position,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said.

The league’s worst defense against stopping the run held Matt Forte to 54 yards rushing on 17 carries, with his longest rush being 13 yards. The Bears had 55 yards rushing for the game.

Going into the game, the Packers were allowing more than 150 yards per game on the ground.

“We knew we had to rebound from what happened in New Orleans,” Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk said.

“It was good to finally be back out there,” he added. “It seemed like we hadn’t played in forever coming off our bye.”

The defense was opportunistic.

Green Bay’s defense intercepted two passes by Bears quarterback Jay Cutler and recovered a fumble. The first interception was key as it came after the Packers’ first scoring drive.

Micah Hyde stepped in front of Bears receiver Martellus Bennett inside the Bears’ 30-yard line and returned it to the 23. Four plays later, the Packers were in the end zone, a 4-yard touchdown pass from Rodgers to Andrew Quarless to make it 14-0.

The Packers turned the Bears’ three turnovers into 21 points, including an 82-yard interception return by Casey Hayward in the fourth quarter that made the score 55-7.

“I was very pleased with all three areas (offense, defense, special teams),” McCarthy said. “It was a great night.”

Clay Matthews played mostly inside linebacker throughout the game and didn’t miss a beat.

“Great job by our defensive (coaching) staff with the creativity,” McCarthy said. “Clay stepped in there and performed at an extremely high level.”

Matthews had a team-high 11 tackles (nine solo, two assists), including two for a loss, and a sack.

“I thought he was outstanding tonight,” McCarthy said.

Then there was Rodgers.

He broke an NFL record, tied another and set a mark, and he accomplished all those feats in the first half, which got the Packers out to a 42-0 halftime-lead on the reeling Bears.

In the first half, Rodgers was 18 of 24 for 315 yards and six touchdowns. The six touchdowns tied Oakland Raiders’ Daryle Lamonica’s record, set in 1969. Rodgers also broke the NFL record with his 16th career touchdown pass of 70 yards or more, breaking the tie with Brett Favre and Peyton Manning.

“I tell people every day he’s the best player on the planet,” Hawk said.

Rodgers also became the first player in NFL history to throw 10 or more touchdowns and no interceptions against a single opponent in one season. In two games against the Bears, Rodgers has 15 incompletions.

Green Bay also scored on clutch plays, once on a fourth-andgoal from the 1-yard line and once on third and long.

“I like the fact that I have to stand up here and answer that question a lot,” said McCarthy when asked if Rodgers could’ve played any better than he did. “He was right on tonight. His statistics at halftime, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like that. He played a great game.”

Now comes a key stretch of the season for the Packers.

They host the Philadelphia Eagles at 3:25 p.m. Sunday. After that is a road game against Minnesota and home games against the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons.

The schedule slightly favors the Packers, with the combined record of the remaining teams is 33-29.

As for the team the Packers are chasing in the NFC North, the Detroit Lions’ schedule is similar, with the remaining teams on its schedule combining for a 32-31 record. However, the Lions play at the Arizona Cardinals, who have the NFL’s best record at 8-1, and at the Patriots the next two games before their Thanksgiving Day game against the Bears.

“After what happened in New Orleans, we knew we could find a way to put it together and we did,” Hawk said. “Now we need to keep doing that.”

“This is a good start, though,” he added.

Just like the offense, the defense hopes it can build on a game like this one and it’ll start against the up-tempo offense by the Eagles.

“They have a ton of talent,” Hawk said of the Eagles. “I have a lot of respect for them. Their offense is super explosive. It’s a huge test for us, but we’ll be up for it.”

Germantown volleyball photos_11.6.14

Germantown’s Mel Heupel (5) and her teammates celebrate a point during a WIAA Division 1 state quarterfinal against Merrill on Thursday at the Resch Center in Ashwaubenon.

Germantown’s Carly Townsend goes for a block.