By: Burke De Boer Sports Editor
In 1982, Wolves volleyball won only one game.
For their final home game, they hosted the Hawaii-Hilo Vulcans, who had won the 1981 national championship. The Vulcans trashed the Wolves 2-15, 2-15, 1-15.
Despite the margins, head coach Joe Caligure said after the game, “They didn’t impress me as being number one.”
1983 saw the program hire its third new coach in three years. The team needed a solution, and Gene Krieger was chosen to solve it.
He brought in a number of high profile recruits and transfer students.
His high rate of recruitment helped the Wolves boom from a 1-22 record in 1982 to 20-15.
Joining the ranks in 1984 was all-state high school recruit setter Jody Sunde.
To test their mettle, the Wolves traveled to Hawaii to open the season. Foremost among their competitors were third-time national champions Hawaii-Hilo. The Wolves held their own and split matches, and Krieger said they should be considered among the top 10 in the nation.
Such notoriety was slow to come. To get the attention of the NAIA polls, they had to earn it. And so they did.
By Oct. 11 they had strung together a series of blowouts: 17 wins, including an eight game streak where they didn’t lose a single set.
At the end of the year they won the conference title. Krieger was voted coach of the year and the Wolves were ranked eighth in the nation.
They opened the District 2 playoffs with finesse, taking down Pacific University, 15-8, 15-7, 15-1. They further bullied their second opponents, beating George Fox 15-7, 15-10, 15-4. For the semi-final they beat second-seed Portland 15-5, 15-12, 15-7.
The playoffs were double elimination, and Portland was still alive to face the Wolves again. This time Western fell, 6-15, 11-15, 10-15.
A sudden-death final match would decide the district title.
The Wolves pulled out a tight win, 15-13, to become champions. The road to their first ever national tournament now lay in front of them: a tri-district regional playoff.
First they faced Gonzaga, and the Wolves were easily favorited over the unranked Bulldogs. The real test would be Hawaii-Hilo, who awaited the Western Oregon-Gonzaga winner.
That test would never come. The Wolves dropped the game to Gonzaga over five sets, 14-16, 15-10, 8-15, 15-3, 8-15.
There was still great pride in what the program had accomplished in such a short amount of time: from heavy underdogs to heavy favorites in two years.
In Feb. 1985, it was revealed that coach Krieger had given money to recruits. The Wolfpack Athletic Club was forming as a way to give athletes financial aid. The money its sponsors were donating had been an important part of Krieger’s recruiting, but the club was not yet active.
“I told the kids there would be money,” Krieger said in a statement. “What was I to do? Wait for the club to get together and not give the kids the money I had promised, or give it out myself? Everything was documented. I didn’t try to hide anything.”
Above board or not, the NAIA forbade “the provision of money to players by coaches.” Krieger resigned.
He was tapped by Nevada Reno to take over their coaching job, and Jody Sunde and the all-league Sue Denison intended to transfer to Reno with him. Ultimately, Reno passed on Krieger and Sunde stayed in Monmouth. Denison still left.
The 1985 Wolves, under new head coach Jim Callender, repeated their district championship and again faced Gonzaga. This time it was a bi-district playoff. This time the Wolves only had to win once to make nationals.
This time they did.
They traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the first Western Oregon volleyball team to play in the national tournament.
Come 1987, Jim Callender took a new job at Division I Memphis and the Western Oregon coaching door continued to revolve. A local was selected this time: Judy Lovre, who had coached Corvallis High to four state titles.
Lovre inherited an experienced team. Only one player was lost to graduation, and she was replaced by Washington Huskies transfer Lori Sappington.
At the end of the 1987 regular season, Judy Lovre’s Wolves were ranked fourth in the nation, the first Western team to crack the top five. They won the conference and district tournaments. And they went all the way to the national championship game.
Though they lost to BYU-Hawaii, who picked up their second consecutive national title, the Wolves returned to Monmouth with another kind of victory. At second in the nation, no Western Oregon team in any sport had ever accomplished so much.
Jody Sunde and Lori Sappington were named All-Americans. They returned, for their senior year, the veterans on a team that lost many to graduation.
Despite a high turnover in players, the Wolves didn’t backslide. In fact, when they made it to the national tournament in 1988, they did even better, and won every single set in their group stage.
They advanced through the double-elimination bracket with ease until they faced Hawaii-Hilo. The Wolves lost to the Vulcans, 7-15, 11-15. They rebounded with a three-set win over Hawaii Pacific and met Hawaii-Hilo for the national title.
For the second year in a row, the Wolves earned second place. Jody Sunde was even named the Reebok player of the year.
Lovre remained head coach of Wolves volleyball until 2004. Over that time she amassed 489 victories, becoming the winningest coach in Western Oregon history. Lovre’s Wolves were the country’s most fearsome mainland team – the 41 NAIA tournament wins that Western Oregon recorded were third only to BYU-Hawaii and Hawaii-Hilo.
Gene Krieger made his coaching rebound at Westmont College in 1987, and since then has helmed many teams. In March, 2017, he landed a new gig. Beginning this fall, he will be the head coach of the Hawaii-Hilo Vulcans.
Contact the author at journal sports@wou.edu
