Full throttle: MK setting new bars at HTC

FORT MADISON - Mary Kate Bendlage wants to win, so her sister knows she has the perfect partner for the family card games during the holidays.

“Oh yeah,” Anna Bendlage said. “She is super-competitive. We never, ever lose. That’s our claim to fame.”

Holy Trinity girls basketball coach Tony Johnson has seen that competitiveness, too.

“That’s been her makeup from the first time I met her,” Johnson said. “Full throttle. ‘What can I do to help us win.’”

Holy Trinity volleyball coach Melissa Freesmeier had Mary Kate in the lineup as a freshman.

“She’s a workhorse,” Freesmeier said. “She never gives up.”

When it comes time for penalty kicks to decide a match, Fort Madison soccer coach Carrie Burken knows who will raise her hand first.

“She’s the person that wants to score the winning goal,” Burken said. “She’s the person who wants to do PKs. Always like, ‘I want to take the first PK.’ I think for her to want to step up every single time speaks to her mindset, and her attitude as an athlete and a person.”

Here’s why Bendlage is so competitive, why she is willing to grab any moment that presents itself.

“I don’t know where the drive came from, but I think a lot of it comes from the hard work I put in during practice,” Bendlage said. “If I put in all of this extra time to be good at the things I’m doing, I want to win. I just don’t want to go out and play and be mediocre. I want to go out and do great things, and show people that all of the hard work that we’re doing is for a reason, and we want to win.”

•••

Everyone calls Mary Kate “MK,” so we’ll call this the MK Resumé:

• Four years of varsity volleyball, helping lead the Crusaders to the Class 1A state tournament the last three seasons, including a state runner-up finish this season, when she was a first-team all-state selection.

• Four years of varsity basketball, with the program record for career points (set last weekend, now at 1,058 with more than half of the season remaining) and single-game points (41, set last season against Notre Dame).

• Three years in the shared soccer program with Fort Madison High School, the last two seasons as a captain.

Oh, and there’s the nearly 4.0 grade point average — “3.97,” Bendlage said — along with the work within the community and within the Holy Trinity system.

Go back to what drives her, and it explains all of the accomplishments.

“I’m very competitive in anything I take on, whether it’s in the community, my class, my siblings,” Bendlage said.

She laughs when she brings up the family card games.

“Everything is competitive in my mind,” Bendlage said.

But if it seems like it’s about individual accomplishments, her coaches say, it’s not.

“She appreciates her teammates, and she’s always giving them credit, and knowing that it takes a team to be successful,” Freesmeier said.

“She’ll do anything for the team,” Burken said. “Anything I ask of her, she will do. I probably don’t express my appreciation to her for that enough, and give her enough credit.”

“The biggest thing with her is she raises the level of play of everyone else,” Johnson said. “When we don’t play well, I don’t have to say anything. She knows what we did wrong.”

•••

Bendlage was on all three of her varsity teams as a freshman.

That’s not easy, she said.

“Coming from eighth grade to being a freshman, you think, ‘Oh, it’s just another basketball game,’ or ‘Oh, it’s another volleyball game,’” she said. “But you’re playing against girls who are 17, 18 years old who are seniors and you’re 14, 15. It’s a big age gap, and there’s a lot of development that goes into those four years of high school. I don’t think people expect that large leap — I certainly didn’t. But I quickly learned how hard it was at the next level. It’s different, it’s a big change, but I’m glad I conquered it with the help I got.”

There were expectations from the seniors in her first year, Bendlage said, and looking back now she knows how much that was a base for what she has accomplished.

“They helped me grow into the person I am, attitude-wise and skill-wise,” she said. “They pushed me to be my best during practices and in games. They expected a lot out of me, and I can’t thank them enough for that.”

Bendlage had 99 kills in her first volleyball season, then 243 as a sophomore, 379 as a junior, 322 as a senior.

“Her skill set was above average, and she had such athleticism from day one,” Freesmeier said. “We knew we would be able to use that athleticism. And her drive was, and is, amazing. That’s why she had an elite high school career, from start to finish.”

Bendlage’s points per game in basketball have steadily increased, from seven as a freshman, to 14.3 as a sophomore, 23.9 as a junior.

“That’s the thing with her — even as talented as she is, she wants to get better every night at practice, work on something, do something better,” Johnson said. “Make all her free throws. Rebound. It's just constant. It's never enough for her. She gets hungry to always get better.”

Johnson remembers seeing Bendlage in her first practice as a freshman. 

“Lo and behold, in four years, she became one of the greatest kids I’ve ever coached,” Johnson said. “That’s how much she has matured and grown over time.”

•••

Freemeier has her players vote for captains.

Bendlage was getting votes, she said, as a sophomore.

“They already saw her leadership back then,” Freesmeier said. “She is a born leader, but it’s something she also works at.”

Bendlage has been a soccer captain the last two seasons. In a shared program where Burken is at one school and several of her players at another, Bendlage has become a bridge between the two.

“I think most people, when they think of MK, they think of someone who is a really hard worker, super-competitive, someone who is very self-motivated,” Burken said. “I think when I think of her, I do think of those things, but I also think of her leadership. Not only on the field, but as a team captain, she does a really good job communicating with the HTC girls. I really appreciate that, because it’s hard for me to communicate with them because I don’t work there. So to have a point person to be able to communicate with, someone who I can tell something, and I know it will get done.”

“I don’t know if I’ve really expressed that to her before, but it’s something I really appreciate.”

Bendlage said her voice comes with the experience, and her coaches agreed.

“She’s learned how to handle different groups, different girls, how she handles a freshman versus how she handled her classmates, who were very driven,” Freesmeier said.

“She is very stern with what she wants to say,” Anna Bendlage said. “But it comes off in a very positive, wanting-to-win way. She's very eager to win, and we all know that.”

•••

The Bendlage sisters — Mary Kate, Anna, and Olivia, who is in the eighth grade — make the three-mile drive from their home in Illinois every school day.

Mary Kate and Anna appreciate the time together.

“It’s the morning talks every day — ‘What do you have going on?’ ‘What’s your day going to be like?,’ Mary Kate said. “And then when we get to school, if we get there early, we’ll sit in the car and talk, or we’ll go get coffee somewhere.”

“We talk about everything — sports, school, whatever,” Anna said.

Anna wasn’t in school Monday — she was taking a college visit. But there was a phone call as she was on her way back.

“I wasn’t even at school yesterday, but we were talking all day,” Anna said. “She wanted to know how it was going, what I thought. We’re always talking.”

The two have been varsity teammates the last three seasons in volleyball and basketball.

“I’ve seen them get closer and closer, and sports have a lot to do with that,” Freesmeier said. “They lean on each other. When you can lean on someone, it makes you a stronger player, a stronger person. It makes you a better teammate.

“I know they’ve really enjoyed playing together, especially this year, because they were both able to elevate their games.”

“We have a special bond that a lot of people don’t get to have in high school,” Mary Kate said. “The good thing about playing sports together is we know each other in and out, we know each other’s hardships. We know when we’re upset. We know what it feels like to have great success, and we know how to comfort each other.”

In the moments after Holy Trinity’s loss to Ankeny Christian in the Class 1A state volleyball championship match this season, the Bendlages hugged and cried on the court, then after consoling teammates shared another emotional embrace.

“I think after state volleyball, Anna knew where my heart was at,” Mary Kate said. “Hers was in the same place, but she worked on comforting me first, knowing we don’t have another year together.

“And then we focused on, ‘Hey, we’ve still got basketball together. Let’s go out and focus, do great things. Let’s see the growth that this team can have.’”

During Senior Night ceremonies for volleyball, Anna brought up the car rides to school, and had to stop for a moment as the emotions got to her.

“I feel like next year, even when she’s at college, we’ll still be talking like that every day,” Anna said.

“Just to be together, being with your sister, it’s a bond I never want to break,” Mary Kate said.

•••

Sports have been an education for Bendlage.

“The things they teach me aren’t just sports-related,” said Bendlage, who is going to attend Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, playing volleyball while majoring in elementary education. “They’re things that I can take out into the community and use in everyday life. Every day I’m going to be working with people, and I have to read what they’re doing, working off them and collaborating with them on ideas, or come up with my own.

“That’s what we do in volleyball and basketball — I have to collaborate with my teammates, I’ve got to come up with new ideas and new skills. I think it’s like putting a puzzle together. Everybody has the pieces to put together to make a strong team.”

Bendlage spends parts of her school day working with the students at Holy Trinity’s elementary school in West Point. She wants to be a teacher, and the experience has taught her plenty.

“Seeing all of the little faces light up when I enter the building, it’s the greatest,” she said. “ I get loads of cards every week. It’s a great environment to be around. I love being around the kids, I love helping them see that small stepping stone in life that can make a difference. If I can do that, I’m satisfied.”

Twice during the interview for this, Bendlage emphasized that she is a student-athlete, not vice versa.

“I need to make sure that my grades are OK, I’m managing my schoolwork, and then follow up on the sports and do the things I need to do,” she said. “That’s one of the things I’ve instilled in my head, and my parents have instilled in me, is that school is your first priority, and that if you’re not able to handle school, we’re going to have to back down on whatever it is.”

She hasn’t had to back down yet, but that may be coming.

•••

Bendlage knows that she’ll have to prepare this spring and summer for the upcoming college volleyball season, and that could mean she doesn’t play soccer this season.

Burken understands.

“We’ve talked, and I know she has to do what’s best for her,” Burken said.

“Carrie Burken and I have a great relationship, and it’s one I couldn’t be more proud of,” Bendlage said. “She cares for me in the classroom, in daily life, what’s going on now, not just the three months I play on her team.

“To have that relationship, it’s just another person who looks out for me 24-7. I know whatever I decide, she’s going to back it up, she’s going to understand. She’s not going to be selfish about anything. She’s going to care about what I care about.”

There are moments left, though, for Bendlage to win in high school.

The victories are already on the resumé.
“I think in the last four years I’ve grown immensely, not just skill-wise but attitude-wise, looking out for my teammates and coaches, and trusting them when I need to,” Bendlage said. “I wouldn’t trade them for anything.”

“She’s just a good, good person, inside and out,” Freesmeier said.

“She’s something else,” Johnson said. “Special.

Then he paused.

“Sometimes,” he said, “you run out of words to describe someone like that.”