Ione is a tiny school with 62 students. It's a rural spot and a small student body, but it's also home to a volleyball team that won an Oregon 1A title with an undefeated season.
Photo courtesy of Amy Betts
When the
Ione (Ore.) Cardinals headed to the Oregon 1A State Volleyball Championships at Pacific University in Forest Grove, about 20 miles west of Portland, the joke was "Will the last person leaving town please turn off the lights."
"We had our section of the stands filled," said fourth-year coach Dawn Eynetich. "We probably had everyone in town at the tournament."
Ione finished the season 32-0.
Photo courtesy of Amy Betts
According to the 2010 Census, that would be about 323 people.
They weren't disappointed about leaving their dawn-to-dusk jobs as the Cardinals won the 1A title with a 3-2 win over North Powder High School. Those dedicated fans made sure their Ione High girls were treated right as they covered the cost of sending the team the 200 miles to Pacific in a stretch limousine and presented each girl with a rose as she got out of the car.
"In Ione, it is about the school. It is about the kids," said Eynetich, who graduated from Ione in the late 1990s and played on the school's first two state volleyball title teams in 1994 and 1996. Now she has coached the Cardinals to a fourth title and their only unbeaten season.
With the state title trophy in hand, the 2011 team returned home via a police escort and with a chain of horn-honking cars following close behind.
"It's small, it's a bit remote, but I can't think of any other place I'd want to raise my family. It's a community where everyone is really like one big family. If something bad happened to me or my family I know we would be taken care of," Eynetich said.
Ione has a restaurant, coffee shop, bank, post office, market (with gas station), grain co-op, insurance business, and Dawn and husband Jeff's trucking business. It's no joke when people say "don't blink or you will miss Ione."
"It's mostly dry land farming," said Eynetich, who has amassed an 80-22 record in her four seasons at Ione. "It's very rural, but it's like no other place. I wouldn't want to raise my children anywhere else."
There's wheat, there's wind. On some days, tumbleweeds outnumber the trees. But nothing overshadows community pride of the Ione school. When the Morro County School District wanted to merge Ione School with neighboring Heppner, the community united and started its own school district, which is up six students this year over last.
Eynetich said it doesn't matter if people have kids in school or not, newcomers to town or whatever, "everyone here supports" the school.
Ione is on the other end of the spectrum of the nation's elite unbeaten volleyball teams. But just like MaxPreps' top three teams Papillion-LaVista South (Neb.), Lake Travis (Austin, Texas), and Chaparral (Parker, Colo.), the Cardinals completed the 2011 season unblemished. It is believed to be only the second unbeaten 1A season in Oregon annals.
MaxPreps' volleyball state championsThe Cardinals, with only 62 high school students, raced through the season with a record of 32-0. The only other unbeaten team in Oregon was Portland's Central Catholic, which won its third-straight 6A title, the state's largest division. It's likely that Central Catholic - as well as Papillion, Lake Travis and Chaparral - has more students per classroom than Ione does per graduating class.
The lack of numbers is something the top teams in MaxPreps Xcellent 25 know little about. Nearly all have feeder club programs and rosters stocked with college prospects.
At Ione, the senior class has 20 students - boys and girls. The Cardinal volleyball program had 14 players in 2011, three more than the 11 players when it finished third in the state in 2010.
"This is a very big senior class and we had six seniors on this year's team," said Eynetich. "That enabled us to have 14 girls this year. Any less and it is hard to practice and scrimmage."
Needless to report, Ione doesn't have many junior varsity games. The coach noted that the week prior to state, she had several players sick and only eight healthy players for practice.
Some of those players have to travel more than two hours to school.
"They get on a bus at 5:50 a.m. and when practice rolls around at the end of the day, they are tired," said Eynetich. "It makes it challenging."
The nearest league opponent is a 50-minute bus ride, whereas others are two hours or longer.
Ione's smallness limits the number of athletic programs the district provides. It's limited to football, boys and girls volleyball, tennis and track. Ione co-ops with Heppner, about 20 miles away, for students to participate in baseball, softball and golf.
But Eynetich was quick to add that she had a trio of special players and when someone went down or the team needed a lift, someone always stepped up.
"This group of girls is a great group of kids. They are smart and athletic and very driven. They are motivated. They were determined to win state no matter what it took.
Her top players included
Joanna Patton,
Makenna Ramos and
Dominica Senkerikoza. Patton, a 5-foot-9 senior, was first team all-state, and Player of the Game in the championship match. Setter Ramos, barely 5 feet tall, is a hustler who will get any ball anyone passes, good or bad, said Eynetich. And Senkerikoza, an exchange student from the Czech Republic, is a left-handed hitter with an amazing serve.
Eynetich expects Senkerikoza to play when she returns to the Czech Republic. "It was very difficult for her here with no year-round program for her. She really knows the game and is a very smart player."
The top three teams in Xcellent 25 have more college-bound players than Ione has on its 14-player roster. At small rural schools like Ione, it's a rarity for an athlete to end up on a college court. Eynetich said Patton likely will play in college and Ramos is looking into some junior college programs.
Plus the coach has plans to start her own "feeder" program next summer when she introduces volleyball to third, fourth and fifth-graders.
"Summer is a tough time to do anything with most of the students working dusk to dawn," said Eynetich. "With such small numbers it's a challenge trying to get kids involved. We try to make it fun, but we like to win."
Eynetich said she gets pretty intense. So much so in one game this year, she ended up in the chiropractor's office the next day.
"I guess that intensity carries onto the court," said the coach. "The girls play with emotion. We like having that zero at the end of our record."
Just like the top teams in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 - unbeaten, determined and prideful.
Big or small, metropolis or remote, unbeaten is not only rare, it is special.
