Ravenna girls hit their shots, whether it's on the basketball court or while hunting in the woodsBy Kelly Hill, The Grand Rapids Press. Found at Mlive.com
December 16, 2010
Ravenna senior basketball players, from left, Morgan Kantola,
Samantha Spoelman, Racheal Shavalier, Brooke Haan
and Ashley Beahan are all hunters. Notably, Spoelman
shot a bear with a bow and Haan shot an eight-point
buck (holding antlers). Photo by Cory Morse, The
Grand Rapids PressRAVENNA -- Five points, seven points, eight points, even 13 points.
If the members of Ravenna’s girls basketball team score as many points on the court as they do in the woods, the Bulldogs will have a successful season.
Bill Stone, Ravenna’s first-year head coach, really had no choice when players Ashley Beahan, Brooke Haan, Morgan Kantola, Racheal Shavalier and Samantha Spoelman approached him the first week of practice and asked if he could cancel practice the following Monday, Nov. 15.
Their reason?
They wanted to head for the woods on opening day of deer hunting season.
Suspecting the girls were being courteous and might skip the practice anyway, Stone agreed, with one condition: The Bulldogs had to practice an extra half-hour every day leading up to their hunting trip to make up for the lost time.
“Yeah, we had to go an extra half-hour every day; we owed it to the girls who are more into shopping than hunting,” Haan said with a slight hint of sarcasm. “He gave us Black Friday off, too, though, so the shoppers could do their thing.”
In 10 years of coaching at Fruitport, Stone had never canceled a practice so his girls could hunt.
“I had never seen anything even remotely like this,” said Stone, whose Bulldogs are 2-1 so far this season. “But these girls are about as passionate about hunting as some wives are about shopping when their husbands go hunting.
“They were more than willing to spend an extra half-hour per day at the other practices. This was really a surprise to me.”
Four of the five hunting Bulldogs have had success since they could hunt legally at age 12. Only Beahan, who took up hunting only a couple of years ago, has never bagged a buck.
Haan, 17, a senior, bagged an 8-pointer in the youth hunt this year and got a 5-pointer two years ago. Shavalier, 17, also a senior, has a spike, a 5-pointer and a 7-pointer to her credit, while Kantola bagged a 5-pointer last year.
Spoelman, 17, also a senior, has been the most successful of the hunting Bulldogs. She has so many deer that she has lost count at nine or 10. Her largest was a 13-pointer, shot on Dec. 19, 2008.
“I remember it was that day because we had a family Christmas party the next day and I had all the pictures,” she said.
Spoelman has bagged four of her deer with a bow.
Spoelman’s biggest kill with a bow, however, came in August of last year, in northern Ontario. On a weeklong hunting trip with her father, Joel, Spoelman shot a 265-pound bear. Spoelman, who weighs in at a little more than 100 pounds, shot the bear from a tree stand, but then had to track it and shoot twice more before bagging her trophy.
“We saw two other bears before that, but it was the fifth day of our trip when I finally got a shot,” she said. “It was awesome. After I shot it, I had to sit down. I literally got light-headed from the excitement. It was crazy.”
The skull of her bear measured 17 7/8 inches, so she missed by an eighth of an inch qualifying for the Pope and Young Club — a charitable organization that promotes and protects bow-hunting heritage.
The Bulldogs were not so lucky this year, however. All five of the hunting Bulldogs were shut out on opening day.
“I sat there all day and I saw one doe,” Spoelman said. “I sat there all day the next day and I didn’t see a thing.”
Kantola saw plenty.
“I saw about 30 doe on opening day, but I got nothing,” she said.
Beahan had reason to think opening day would be the day she bagged her first buck.
“As I was walking in to my stand a deer ran right past me,” she said. “I have no luck, though, because that was the only one I saw. It was crazy.”
http://www.mlive.com/sports/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/12/ravenna_girls_hit_their_shots.html
