MIKE MACKE
WZBD.com
This Saturday, the Bellmont volleyball team heads to Worthen Arena on the Ball State Campus for the third consecutive year to vie for the 3A State Championship. While many know of the recent success of the volleyball program, some may not know much about the history of volleyball at Bellmont.
Phyllis Hebble is the Grand Dame of female sports at Bellmont and she sat down with me to discuss how this storied program came about.
Before 1972, there wasn’t an IHSAA, there was the GAA – Girls Athletic Association. It was the precursor to what would become the IHSAA. Phyllis had started at Monmouth and when Bellmont consolidated, she was the GAA sponsor. She started a girls basketball team and gymnastics team in 1971-72. There were several girls who came to the gym regularly and when Adams Central started a volleyball program, Phyllis thought Bellmont should too. She took a group of girls up to Carroll H.S. to watch a match and they got so excited about it that they came back to Decatur and started practicing that very night. The team officially began competing in 1972.
The first year was a learning curve, but the team registered a winning season in just the second year. An amazing stat is that Bellmont has not had a losing season in volleyball since that first year! It wasn’t particularly easy as the programs in the Fort Wayne area featured a Who’s Who of coaches (Arnie Ball, Ry Taliafaro and Tom Beerman to name a few), but Phyllis and the Bellmont girls would not be intimidated and competed very well against them.
A short six years later, in 1978, the Squaws (as they were called at that time) won the Jay County Sectional and the Wayne Regional, qualifying for the State tournament. At that time, the eight Regional winners played at Ben Davis High School for the state title.
Bellmont played their first-round match against Evansville Mater Dei. The girls from Decatur went in with hopes of doing well but lost the match and made an early exit.
It was not only the first state appearance in volleyball, but the first for any girls team from Bellmont, setting a precedent of excellent female athletics. Members of that team were seniors Deb Hormann, Lucy Thieme, Julie Voglewede and Deb Wilder. Juniors were Barb Alberding, Gina Boyle, Laurie Geels, Laura Ranly, Mary Kay Schwartz, Julie Teeple and Linda Voglewede. Sharon Voglewede was the lone sophomore.
Phyllis took the team back to state in 1984. By then, the sport had grown, and a Semi-State level had been added bringing a “final four” to the State final. Bellmont won the Marion Semi-State title, defeating an undefeated Pendleton Heights team to reach the finals, which were still held at Ben Davis High School. Unfortunately, they lost in their opening match to the eventual State Champion Clinton Prairie.
We talked about how the game has changed from those first years. The matches were timed back then, and you only scored on serve.
Shortly after that season, Mrs. Hebble gave up coaching volleyball but was not done with sports. She became the first woman Athletic Director at Bellmont and helped initiate female teams in Cross Country and golf among other accomplishments. Though it would be twenty years before Bellmont would return to the final four in volleyball, they fielded several very good teams and won numerous Sectional and Regional titles. However, a Semi-State championship and ticket to the finals eluded them.
Bellmont returned in 2005 when Craig Krull took his first Bellmont team to the state tournament. Volleyball was now a class sport and Brebeuf Jesuit defeated the Squaws on their way to the class 3A title. That team was young and featured several underclassmen who would get their shot before graduating. Two years later, Krull and the team returned to the state finals.
This time, they would avenge the loss to Brebeuf, then defeat Mishawaka Marian to win the school’s first State Championship in volleyball. Seniors Cindi Miller, Christina Baker, Brittney Hutker and Kylee Lehrman led the way. The team also featured freshmen Chelsea Colclasure and Alex Fuelling who would find their way back for a second time during their H.S. career.
In 2010, coach Krull and the Squaws made it to the finals to face a familiar foe, Brebeuf Jesuit. The format had changed to a four-team semi-state and a two team final. Thus, it would come down to one match on the day. Bellmont took down top ranked Brebeuf in three straight to win the school’s second State Championship. Fuelling and Colclasure were joined by key performances from Madison Schultz and Steph Shoup.
Bellmont and coach Krull have made the finals four times since, in 2019, 2021, 2022 and this year. Each of the three previous appearances during that run have resulted in runner-up finishes, and the Braves hope that this year will be different, and they can add a third State Championship to the trophy case.
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