Josie Brackey, left, and Jim Boehmer, right, react during a match against Forest City this season. -- Andrew Dyrdal

Brackey, Boehmer lead Lake Mills to state title match

LAKE MILLS, Iowa — Seemingly everywhere all the time, Josie Brackey is the loudest, most expressive player on an already enthusiastic team.

A junior at Lake Mills High School, Brackey was the Bulldogs volleyball team’s outside hitter with a powerful cross-court kill that helped her tally a team-high 412 kills this season.

She, along with three other Bulldogs, was named to the North Iowa All-Conference first team and after leading

Lake Mills to the state championship match, she was named to the Class 2A all-state tournament team.

Brackey, 17, has been playing volleyball since fourth grade and her talent culminated this season in the biggest match of her career.

Playing Mediapolis, the No. 2 ranked team in the state semifinals, Brackey unloaded for 17 kills and 13 digs in a 3-0 win.

Lake Mills head coach Jim Boehmer said Brackey was “on her game.” Brackey said she just elevated it.

“I do my best when we play good teams,” Brackey said. “That was probably my best match of the season. I was really efficient, which usually I’m not.”

Advancing to the state finals wasn’t something Brackey expected to do during her junior season.

The Bulldogs entered the season with a number of injuries and lost an All-State honorable mention player to graduation. Boehmer picked Forest City to finish ahead of Lake Mills in the NIC and Brackey would have agreed. Still the Bulldogs finished 45-2 and the state runner-up.

“That didn’t even cross my mind,” Brackey said, of playing in the state finals. “That’s a lot of wins and a lot of games.”

Part of what makes Brackey such a successful hitter is her relationship with junior setter Morgan Fjelstad.

“We’re best friends,” Brackey said. “It’s nice to have your best friend be your setter because we never get in fights.”

Brackey, and the team leaned on Fjelstad in the regional finals against Sumner-Fredricksburg. Down 9-6 in the fifth set, Fjelstad served nine straight points launching the Bulldogs to their first state tournament berth since 2001.

“I was very happy she was serving,” Brackey said. “I never want to face her in practice because I hate her serves.”

Brackey said winning the regional finals and advancing to state was her favorite moment of the season.

“By having all of the fans come down and run at you, you’re just happy for what you accomplished,” she said.

Brackey plays volleyball nearly year round, with the exception of the summer softball season. She plays on the North Iowa Elite AAU team with players from conference rivals Osage and Forest City, and begins playing again after Christmas.

After graduating high school she hopes to play volleyball, softball or both at the collegiate level.

Volleyball changed veteran Lake Mills coach’s life.

Nineteen years ago, Jim Boehmer became the Lake Mills volleyball coach so that one day his wife could take over — he didn’t know he was about to fall in love with the sport.

The Osage, Iowa, native moved to Lake Mills to fill an open teaching position. His wife, a former volleyball

player, wanted to become the Lake Mills head volleyball coach but the position required a teaching license. Boehmer had his, she didn’t, so he took the job. His wife became the assistant, planning on taking over as head coach one she got licensure.

During his first season at the helm, Bohemer’s players changed his plan and his life forever.

“The girls I had that first year really made coaching enjoyable for me,” Boehmer said. “It’s probably their fault I still do it. They created the monster that is coach Boehmer.”

Since his first season in 1992, Boehmer has won 512 games and has a winning percentage of 77 percent. He has led the Bulldogs to 11 regular season North Iowa Conference titles, including a current streak of seven consecutive and has advanced to the state tournament twice.

Boehmer attributes that success to consistency.

“I’ve only worked with four assistant coaches in 19 years,” he said. “That consistency is so important because we coaches know each other well. It has helped us and made us consistent winners.”

Though Boehmer has experienced considerable success over the past 19 years, he never envisioned he’d be competing in the state championship game this mid-November.

“I believed every game in our regular season was winnable,” he said. “Not that I thought we would go undefeated, but going in I felt we could compete against everybody.”

But the Bulldogs didn’t just compete with everybody, they beat everybody and opened the season 17-0 before losing to North Sentral Kossuth 2-1 in a mid-season tournament.

“You don’t want to be complacent,” Boehmer said. “The thing that this team had was a very competitive nature and they truly never looked past anybody. They took every match with a sense of urgency and stayed focused.”

The team’s 45 wins trounced the previous school record of 38 wins set in 2008. Boehmer attributes this year’s success to the range of talents on the team.

“The broad base of talent was so diverse,” Boehmer said, noting the unique skill sets of each of his players. “When you put all those talented pieces together the whole can’t help but be good.”

Boehmer also said his team was able to overcome their lack of height by jumping not high, but well.

“Collectively, the talent level was one of the best inch-for-inch,” he said.

In addition to coaching the varsity team, Boehmer coaches the Lake Mills Northern Lights program in the spring, teaching fourth- through sixth-graders the fundamentals of what he calls “Lake Mills volleyball.”

“We take a lot of pride in saying ‘this is about being a Bulldogs,’” Boehmer said. “We don’t ask them to be perfect, we just ask them to strive for perfection.”

Click here to see the 2010 Tribune All-Area teams