Story Photos
 Photo by Bill Wagner From left, Kara VanZanten, Kaitlyn Senn, Kelsey DeLaGrange and Rashelle Davenport have been Cowlitz Volleyball Club teammates for seven years. The will play their last games together starting Saturday. |
Four of a kind
Wednesday, June 22, 2005 8:26 AM PDT
By Ben Zimmerman
Printable version
E-mail this articlehey have missed the prom, church, choir trips, school activities, family vacations ... and far too many hours of sleep to count.
Yet these four soon-to-be college freshmen wouldn't swap a single moment of their journey through the Cowlitz Volleyball Club together.
Rashelle Davenport, Kaitlyn Senn, Kara VanZanten and Kelsey DeLaGrange have played on the same Cowlitz teams for seven years, seven months a year.
They have sacrificed most of the leisure that other teens take for granted ---- for the love of volleyball, and each other.
Davenport, a 2005 Kalama graduate, and DeLaGrange (Kelso) will remain teammates in the fall when they join the Mount Hood Community College volleyball program. Senn (Mark Morris) heads to Bellevue CC and will become their NWAACC opponent. VanZanten (Mark Morris) will play volleyball at Northwest College in Kirkland, a four-year school.
Senn and DeLaGrange plan on coaching a Cowlitz team next spring.
At Volleyball Festival 2005, which starts Saturday and continues through July 1, the foursome will compete for Cowlitz Asics 18s Black, seeded 16th in the 190-team 18-and-under division ---- the second-highest seeding in club history.
After that, their days as Cowlitz teammates will be over.
And things just won't be the same.
"I remember when Kaitlyn and I were in braces," said Davenport. "We've been best friends since we started. We click."
It's something other teams and coaches always notice.
"You can tell we're having fun together," DeLaGrange, a nine-year Cowlitz veteran, added. "Every other team you look at has their girl problems. We got past that right away. We're just a fun team to watch, because we goof around and enjoy each other."
Cowlitz is one of the elite volleyball programs on the West Coast, and maintaining that reputation is a consuming endeavor. On the day of tournaments, waking up at 5:30 a.m. is routine.
"You get used to it," said Senn.
"I don't," said Davenport.
Following a trip to the Class 1A state tournament with Kalama, Davenport once drove home from Yakima at 4 a.m. just to make it to Cowlitz tryouts on time.
"We're out of town a lot," she said. "There's not a lot of staying out late."
For some, the sacrifices are easy to make. DeLaGrange said that volleyball is her favorite thing to do, and joked that she tried to use Cowlitz as an excuse to miss her father's wedding.
"Volleyball is my life," she said. "It has always been there for me. I missed every prom except my senior one, but I never really minded."
For others, the demands of the club have been trying. But never too much.
"I almost quit before 18s. I was set on not coming back," said Senn. "I couldn't handle not seeing these people."
"If I didn't enjoy the people, I wouldn't have fun on the court," VanZanten added.
In between days of a tournament last weekend, Senn, Davenport and VanZanten got just three hours of sleep, then trudged back to the gym at 7:45 a.m. DeLaGrange got "none at all," Senn said.
"It wasn't miserable because we were out there together," she added. "My mom noticed. She said you could see we were having fun out there, not so much trying to win as just getting through the day together."
Bill Marshall is in his 25th year as director of Cowlitz, which has helped 233 athletes land scholarships. He has kept the program strong by encouraging players to "give back what they get out of it," said DeLaGrange.
Marshall walks the walk, too, modeling the kind of commitment he expects from his players through his own sacrifices of family time.
"I have a passion for kids and this is one way for me to give back," Marshall said. "As long as I have fun, I'll keep doing it. This team is one of the most successful I've ever had on the court, and gets along off it. This group has made it a lot of fun to make my commitment and sacrifices.
"They keep me young, which I'm not anymore," he added, "they give me permission to think young. I'm proud to say that this group of kids reflects the philosophy of our program."
In 2004, Marshall drove back and forth between Pasco and Longview every day ---- watching his son, Craig, a pitcher for Lower Columbia College, at the NWAACC Baseball Championships, and coaching the Cowlitz Asics 18s Black at LCC.
"He's a good guy who gets along with everyone. That is hard for a guy," said Davenport.
"Especially," added Senn, "with 18-year-old girls."
Marshall "loves the club," said VanZanten. "He'll do anything for it. He carpools us to tournaments, buys us dinner, you name it."
With players such as Davenport, DeLaGrange, Senn and VanZanten, whose bond inspires him, Marshall said the sacrifices are a pleasure.
"Thirty years together and they still like each other, and are committed to each other and to this program," he said. "They're like sisters."
Ben Zimmerman is a sportswriter for The Daily News. He can be reached at zim@tdn.com or 577-2528.
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