Leah Clarke ran away with the Enterprise girls Athlete of the Year title (2025-26 season), garnishing nearly 40% of fan votes over the past couple of weeks.
Glen Lake’s Delanie Dembowske finished second, followed by Leland’s Ariah Amin in third. Lydia Fosmore (Glen Lake), Sophie Grinage (Leland) and Laila Shimek (Glen Lake) garnished the rest of the 1,434 total votes cast.
Suttons Bay junior Leah Clarke’s ability to run an offense from the setter position was the engine behind one of the best seasons in recent Suttons Bay volleyball history.
She racked up more than 500 assists on the year to go with 109 digs, steering the Norsemen to a 24-3 regular season and a share of the Northwest Conference title with Buckley and Onekama.
Clarke and the Norse didn’t suffer their first loss of the season until late September, when Onekama handed them their only regular-season conference defeat. That loss didn’t stop Suttons Bay from clinching a share of the Northwest Conference championship — its first since 2007 — with a three-set win over Bear Lake. Senior Megan U’Ren credited the team’s leadership for the achievement, while Dohm pointed to a team that held each other accountable and stayed coachable when mistakes came up.
The run recalled Suttons Bay volley- ball’s dominant stretch in the early 2000s, when the Norse won back-to-back conference titles in 2006-07 and four straight district championships from 200307.
In the postseason, Clarke helped push Suttons Bay to a district finals appearance, setting up a five-set win over Leland in the semifinal before the Norse fell to Onekama in the district final.
Delanie Dembowske
(Glen Lake) Dembowske finished second in the voting after a season in which she was the workhorse in the circle for the Lakers, striking out hitter after hitter and setting the tone at the plate and on the bases.
Dembowske picked up her 100th strikeout of the season in early May and kept adding to the total the rest of the way, including a 14-6, 6-3 win over Onekama. She helped push Glen Lake to a second-place finish at the Kris Popp Strikeout Cancer Invitational and a 16-12 record overall.
Ariah Amin
(Leland) Amin’s defensive presence anchored Leland’s back line all season, drawing enough respect from voters to land her on the ballot alongside the offensive standouts at the top as she finished third in the player of the year voting.
No matter the results, these athletes have given everything they had.
