WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Charger Rundown: Marilyn Popplewell, Lauren Passaglia and Mike Herzog

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Marilyn Popplewell and Lauren Passaglia join the Charger Rundown to talk about their lives as Charger volleyball players, and Mike Herzog joins to talk about his life as a Charger football player.  Evan Mick also recaps the previous week of Charger sports.  

Hello and welcome to 101.7 FM Radio Free Hillsdale. This is the Charger Rundown, and I'm Evan Mick. Joining me today are volleyball players Lauren Passalia and Marilyn Pappalwell and football player Mike Herzog. But first, let's recap this week's Charger Sports. The Charger volleyball team went 2 and O'N O'clock this weekend, beating Malone in three sets, and Defeating Walsh on their senior night also in three sets. Against Malone, every single Charger contributed to the win. Al-Awees had nine digs, Lauren Passalia had six, and Amanda Hillaker at five. Marilyn Popwell and Maisie Brown each had seven kills, and Emery Braswell and Megan Colp each had six kills. Lauren Basalia then had 21 assists, and Josie Cheslaw had seven assists. Ali Wiese also had four aces and Maisie Brown had three. They then handed Walsh their first GMAC loss.

Ali Weiss had 12 digs. Emery Braswell and Marilyn Popswell added seven digs each. Lauren Basalia had six digs and Audrey Riley had five. Maisie Brown and Marilyn and Marilyn Popwell had 11 kills each. Emery Braswell had 10 kills, and Megan Culp had six kills. Marilyn Pappwell also had three service aces. Lauren Bersalia then added 34 assists in just three sets, which means that she assisted 45% of all Charger points. This week, the Charger volleyball team takes on Malone, Thursday at 7 p.m., Tiffin, Friday at 7 p.m,

and Finley, Saturday at 4 p.m. All on the road. Best of luck to them. Hillsdale College actually went 2-0 against Walsh on Saturday, because the Hillsdale College football team defeated Walsh, 28 to 3. This is Hillsdale's fourth straight win. Mike Kurzog had 156 yards on just 20 carries on the ground, which is improving upon that 1,000-yard season he's already having, also making him a major contributor to the 486 total yards Hilsdale had. Garrett Isson threw for 131 yards, including a 41-yard touchdown to Logan Van Inkenvort. Van Inkenvort broke off another large play on the ground for 68 yards, bringing his total up over 100 and setting up Hillsdale for a score.

Shea Tuddy Ruddy scored two on the ground, totaling 66 yards on two catches and three total rushes. Sam Lee had a big day, blocking as well as receiving, as he had three catches for 74 yards. Caden, Beans, also broke off a run for 32 yards. And the charger offense kept turnovers at a minimum, having no interceptions and no Fumbles. Defensively for the Chargers, Riley Tollsman played a great game with seven tackles, and two tackles for loss, and one QB hit. Jacob Vance also totaled seven tackles and had a QBee hit. Will Wims and Caden Evans both had five tackles. And Drake Badger

and Zachary Toki each had one tackle for loss. The defense as a whole allowed zero touchdowns. Football players the week include offensive player Shea Ruddy, defensive player Riley Tolzma, special team's player Daniel Sutherington, Big Stick Award to Vince Francis Cohn, and every player every play award, or EPPEPEP to Ely Heidemis. week the Chargers will play Ohio Dominican University on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Muddywater Stadium. So please come out and support your Charger football team. Today I'm here with two Charger volleyball players, outside hitter Marilyn Papua and Sitter, Lauren Paisalia. Tell me a little bit about yourselves. Where are you from and what are your majors? Hi, I'm Lauren. I'm from the northwest suburbs of Chicago

in Illinois. I'm a setter on the volleyball team and I'm an accounting major. I'm Marilyn, Maryland, Papwell. And I am from Mason, Ohio, which is a suburb outside of Cincinnati. Natty, and I am a Spanish and biology major. So both of you were over three hours away from Hillsdale. So why Hillsdale? For me, the culture on the team was super unmatched, and I was valuing academics when I was looking at schools, and Hillsdale really pulled through on that end. Yeah, I have a similar answer to Lauren.

It was definitely more of an academic decision. The team was super fun when I was on my visit at camps, and coach was just different than any of the other coaches I had talked to, so it just worked out. So both you had tremendous 2022 seasons. Marilyn, you had the eighth most kills in a single season history, and Lauren, you had the fifth most assists in single season history. After those amazing seasons, how do you guys improve for the 2023 season? I think just the way our season ended last year really motivated me to work really hard in

the off season. We didn't have, obviously, like you just said, we didn't have a bad season last year, but you always end the season on a loss unless you win the national championship. championship in our situation. So coming off of that loss at the end of the season, I was just super fired up and excited to work really hard in the spring and summer to get better. And hopefully that'll pay off this season. For sure. We also have a lot of depth on our team. We have a lot of young athletes that are super ready to prove themselves. So they are constantly pushing us to get better every single day. So volleyball is a really physically demanding sport, but it's not a sport such as basketball or

soccer where you're constantly running. So how do you prepare for a season in terms of endurance? We jump. We jump a lot. We do a lot of jump training on what's called a vertimax. It's a bunch of bungeys and pulley systems that help us increase our verticals. We do a lot of like short sprint sprint work. Obviously we don't do a ton of distance like basketball or soccer would, but we do a lot of short like interval sprints. Yeah, mostly like power training. So sprinting and jumping and then a lot of time in the weight room as well. What does you guys this pregame routine look like? And do you have a pregame song or something like that? The routine kind of changes depending on whether we're home or away just a little bit.

But consistently, Lauren always braids my hair before every match. So that's kind of something fun that helps me get in the right mindset before the game. And I would say that's probably my most consistent pregame ritual, getting my hair braided. Sometimes we'll at home get like a pregame coffee or something like that. But other than that, I try not to have too strict of a routine that it could get messed up and could affect how I perform in the match. Yeah, same with Maryland. Pre-game coffee is usually pretty essential. I do a lot of people's hair before the game, so that kind of calms my nerves a little bit, gives my mind off the game. So it's good to calm down a little bit, and then I'll put my headphones on,

listen to some music, get myself in the mood to play, and just go out there and have fun. So, Lauren, because you're a setter, it's important for you not to get the first hit, but it's also important that if the ball come towards you, it doesn't hit the ground. Correct. So how do you balance setting and playing defense. So luckily for me, we typically have two setters out on the court. Audrey Riley is also a trained setter. So if I can take the first ball, she's usually able to take the second or we'll give the ball up to our right side, Megan, who also has some really nice hands as well. So both of you played multiple sports in high school. What are the biggest differences now that you have an off season to train? I mean, as much as we have an off season,

like it really doesn't feel like an off season because we are still training super heavily. I do definitely miss aspects of basketball and soccer, which I played in high school, just like the physicality of it, but volleyball was always number one. Yeah, I do. I miss basketball as well, but it is kind of nice to be able to focus on one sport and put all my time and energy into becoming a better volleyball player instead of also having to worry about training to become a better basketball player as well. So when do you guys plan on graduating and what are your plans after graduation if you already have them?

So I'll be graduating in 2025. I haven't really figured out exactly what I want to do yet, but obviously I'm getting an accounting major hoping to go into business, maybe something in like sports business, but we'll see what the future is in store. I also plan on graduating in the spring of 2025, and I'm really not sure what I want to do when I graduate, but I know it will involve attending more school, maybe medical school, maybe dental school, maybe doing research and getting my PhD. I'm not really sure yet, but hopefully it will involve going to more school. That's the plan right now. She's really smart. So what's your favorite viable?

all memories so far. We were actually talking about this at pregame meal today. So last year in one of our games, we were running pretty low on subs, and we had Amanda Hillaker sub in for one of our middles to serve. And it got towards the end of the game, and we happened to run out of subs. So she actually got the opportunity to play front row in the middle. And she went into it with her whole heart ready to play. And we actually ended up acing the other team. So she didn't have to hit the ball or block the ball or anything, but just how eager she was to be out there was super funny. Yeah, that's also probably my favorite memory because I was actually front row with Mandy at that time. And I came in as a middle, but I switched positions to play outside. And I was super excited because since Mandy was in,

I was going to get to play middle for one rotation. So when we aced the other team, I got kind of sad because I really wanted to see how that line up was going to play out. How does your faith affect how you guys play volleyball? So for us going into every single game, our assistant coach, Courtney, actually preys over the whole team. So it's really nice for us to all the time. So it's really nice for us all to come together and really just like get synced up, get on the same page and really just appreciate the Lord. Yeah, I think something that we have talked about a lot on our team recently is loving one another and using love as more of a verb. So an action and we call it like the Jesus love. So trying to use that to become better people and better teammates for each other,

both on and off the court has been a very big focus of this season. And I think that's helping our performance and also just helping us learn how to be better human beings and better believers. So you guys had a big win against Walsh this week, or as we're recording today, on senior night. What changed from the first time you played them and you lost in a close two to three game and this time you played them and won three to zero? I think definitely the revenge factor played in a little bit. Everyone was super, super ready to just get out on the court and really prove ourselves today. And that showed everyone really stepped up and made a huge impact.

Yeah, I think definitely playing on our home court helped a little bit too. But really, I don't think it would have mattered where we played them because everyone was just really focused today and wanted to get the job done as well and as quickly as we could just to send our message that we're still working and we haven't hit our peak this season yet. We're so getting better. So every year you guys graduate seniors and gain incoming freshmen. How do you build a relationship with new freshmen even as you guys get older? Well, we have them on campus quite a bit. We actually had a game. a couple weeks ago where almost all of our incoming freshmen were there. So it's really fun to be able to build relationships with them there. They also come to camps and stuff in the summer so we get to hang out with them for like a whole week in the summer and really get to know them. And obviously social media helps with that a lot too. Yeah. And then once we get back on campus with them during the preseason, we're all with each other like pretty much 24-7 for about a week. And we just try to spend as much time altogether. Everyone getting to know each other better, but with a special emphasis on really getting to know the freshmen because sometimes it's hard to come in into that environment when

everyone else already knows each other super well and you're kind of the odd one out. So we really try to kind of force them to open up to us just to help them out and get them integrated into our culture really well. Throughout this semester, we'll do like little team bonding things to make sure everyone's still making an effort to get to know each other better and yeah, little things like that. So you guys have assistant coaches this year who have been here for less time than you have. So how do you develop that relationship of learning from them and them learning from you because there's a balance there? We definitely do.

Like you said, there's definitely a balance there. And I think our assistant coaches, specifically our newest one, Courtney Adelman, she has really tried to take on the learning from us as well because she knows and recognizes there's things that she doesn't know and things that we don't realize that she doesn't know all the time. So she's very humble and able to be like, hey, what do I need to do for this or what's the expectation here? So I think that's been good just having that humility and not being embarrassed to ask us questions because we should be able to have that relationship where if someone doesn't know something, they're not afraid to ask. So that's been good trying to navigate that. Definitely. And it's been really

cool to watch Alyssa make the transition from player to coach because it was her fifth year, our incoming freshman year. So we got to spend that year with her on the court practicing together and just to really see her mature and like fill that role in the office has been really fun to see. So what are some things that you guys do as a team for the community? We are actually this Tuesday. We're going to go walk some dogs at one of the local shelters. So I think everyone's really excited about that. Unfortunately, we don't get to practice on Tuesday because it's voting day. But We're all super excited to get out in the community and do something that's good for the community, but also something that we're going to have a really good time doing.

We also run a club volleyball program for the area called Charged Up, so it's really fun to be able to get involved with that, make connections with some of the local girls and really just seeing them grow throughout the sport. Thank you so much, Lauren and Maryland. And thank you for listening to the Charger Rundown on 101.1.7 FM, ready for your hillstow. Roll Chargers. Up next, you'll meet Running Back, Mike Herzog. Of course, veteran running back Michael Herzog is the foundation of this offense.

as he has been for years. He's writing a nine-game streak of at least one touchdown, and I'm willing to bet money that he continues that impressive streak today. He's a snap. Hands it off to Herzog, who is in the end zone for another score. That's going to make it 20 to zero. Herzog, to the left, open space at the 20-yard line. 10, 5, touchdown.

Two plays. Touchdown. I'm here with Mike Herzog, running back for Hillsdale College. Mike, congratulations on getting 1,000 yards. What does this achievement mean to you? It's always been something I've wanted to do. I know last year I fell about 60 yards short. Pretty cool to kind of reach that milestone,

but with one game left, still looking to keep building. At the end of day, it doesn't really matter how many yards I run for as long as we continue to win games. You're from Canada. So what are some of the differences between? American football and Canadian football. The field in Canada is huge compared to the American field. There's two 50-yard lines.

The end zones are 20 yards apiece. The field is about 65 yards wide. There's something called a rouge, which is one point. The uprights are on the goal line. So there's a lot of different things. I don't know if you've seen, there's some video surfacing about on-side punts. Have you seen those?

I've seen a couple of those. I don't get those. But yeah, it's a pretty wild game in comparison. So what's your major? Marketing management. And what do you plan to do with that after you graduate? Yeah, I plan to get into sales after football. However, right after the season, I'm going to try and see, give it a shot,

playing professionally. So, you know, if that doesn't work out, then I'll probably end up getting into sales and figured out then. So there is a hope for paying professionally. Where do you want to play professionally? And do you have any contacts already? If it was up to me, I'd want to play in the NFL. CFL draft is in May.

Contacts-wise, I mean, we've had a few teams come to campus. And as for NFL teams, we've had a few teams come to meet with me, and Mike Harding was there as well. But CFL, I know our director of player personnel, he was taking care of that, so he's been in contact with some CFL coaches. Yeah. What is your favorite football memory from Hillsdale College? Favorite?

Probably beating. Ashland last year. That was pretty cool. Ashland was ranked number sixth. We took him down pretty, I'm pretty sure we won by, I don't even know how many points, but that was a pretty sweet victory because we also got the traveling trophy as well. So you've come back from a major injury. Do you think that injury helped you become stronger in any way, maybe mentally? 100% mentally. I feel like I took the game for granted before my injury, didn't realize how much I really loved the game of football until it was taken away from me. I couldn't play. So being able to bounce back from an injury like that, I kind of appreciated the

game more, and I think that's helped me tremendously. So in 2019, you played wide receiver. Then you transitioned to tailback, and you've been very good at tailback. Why did you make that change? Well, I didn't make the change. But before I played receiver, I actually came here as a DB. I don't know if you knew that. I did not know that. I came here as a DB because I went to the, I went to their camp here as a corner. So they offered me as a. the corner, played a semester there for spring, got moved to a slot because they didn't want to move me yet to running back because of the seniors that were there. There was three seniors. Dave Graham was here. And then I finally got moved to running back after Dave graduated. So the Chargers have

gotten on a hot streak as of late. Winning four straight games. What's something that the team has improved on to help this winning streak? Just being able to play a full 60 minutes. I know the first four games of the season, we would have some moments where we were playing super well, and then some moments where we weren't playing so great. We've also reduced the amount of turnovers. You look at the games where we've lost, we've probably had upwards of three turnovers each in those games, and then you look at the games where we've won, we've had close to no turnovers. So that's probably the biggest difference. What would you say is your best skill set at the running back position? I would say, I want to say my balance. I feel like I can do a

pretty good job of shaking guys off of me. Yeah, and that just comes from years and years of playing running back since I was a kid. So you said that you came here as a corner, but you played running back since you were a kid. So when did the turn of transition to DB to running back in high school and all that stuff work? So I started playing when I was eight years old. I was a running back up until I played running back throughout high school and then I also played a little bit of linebacker. I started playing DB in seven-on-seven because my brother, Zach, who went here as well as my dad, told me I had a better chance of playing college football as a DB because they were five DBs on the field.

There was only one running back. So that didn't really work out. So those guys, they were pretty wrong. They were pretty off about that. Do you have any specific pre-game routine or a pre-game song? Pre-game routine, I like to have a, I always have my coconut water before the game. Pre-game songs, I like to listen to a lot. lot of Drake. Some of the teams we play like to play Drake before the games, which I think is a big

mistake. You could just ask, you could ask E. Lee about that. He's a big Drake fan. So in the game against Lake Erie, you had the least amount of carries yet you tied for your season high in yardage. How does the game like that shake out for you? I mean, it kind of sucks because you finish the game after the first quarter. And then me and a bunch of the starters were just chilling on the sideline for the rest of the game. And it started to get a little bit cold. But you get to watch some of the younger guys get in, which was pretty cool. But it's upsetting that you don't get to play as much football as you thought you were going to. Well, thank you, Mike.

Thanks for having me, Mick. And you're listening to 101.7 FM ready for Hillsdale. Thank you. And roll chargers. On a final note, Hillstone College Men's and Women's Basketball will be opening their season this week. Hillsdale College Men's Basketball plays at Wayne State at Friday at 5 p.m. And they play at home on Sunday against Saginaw Valley at 3 p.m. We're looking forward for an exciting season for them as they look to outplay their

ranking of sixth in the GMAC preseason poll. Hillslow College Women's Basketball opens at Purdue Northwest at 7 p.m. on Friday and at home on Saturday at 1 p.m. against Illinois Springfield. They also look to outplay the ranking of 8th in the GMAC preseason poll.