Originally Posted, Monday, October 18, 2010
Now don’t take this as gospel, and don’t go and book rooms in Salina, at least not yet, but a week from now, the Louisburg Wildcat Volleyball team should be practicing for their shot at the big time, the Kansas Class 4A State Volleyball Tournament.
I don’t have a crystal ball, and I’m sure not very good at predicting the future, because if I was, I’d have won the lottery, and I’d be sipping some cool beverage in some exotic location, but I’m not, an the way my luck runs, I’m not going to any time soon either.
No, all I have is my own two eyes, and the time it takes to watch quite a bit of volleyball with a bunch of different teams through the course of a season.
When the sub-state tournament assignments were made by the state, it was pretty obvious that the Louisburg Sub-State was going to be a three team race, with the favorites being the Wildcats, along with their Frontier League comrades, the Spring Hill Broncos and the Paola Panthers.
The remaining five team are the Fort Scott Tigers, the Anderson County Bulldogs, the Iola Mustangs, the Prairie View Buffalos and the Osawatomie Trojans.
Let’s face it, there’s just no “Powerhouse” team in this sub-state. It’s about as evenly matched as it can be, so even in fact that the state did just the opposite this year in assignments than what they did to Paola two years ago when it was their turn to host a sub-state.
In 2008, if you remember, the Panthers had one of the best teams in the eastern half of the state, and one of the top two teams in the Frontier League. And what, in it’s infinite wisdom did the state do that year?
All the KSHSAA did in 2008 was load up the Paola sub-state with the St. James Thunder and the Ottawa Cyclones. St. James was the NUMBER ONE ranked team in the state in ALL Classes that year, and Ottawa was the number four ranked team in Class 4A.
All THREE teams deserved to be in the state tournament, but only one could go. The Thunder, of course, wiped out the field in the sub-state and the state tournaments that year, (and last year too!). But the point is, two of those three teams didn’t stand a chance!
Well, that’s not the case this year, quite the opposite, I think there’s three teams again that have a chance to win this year’s sub-state at Louisburg, and here’s my take on it in ascending order.
Third, the Paola Panthers. Just about a month ago, I had the Panthers in the favorite spot. And, that’s interesting, because they had just come off a lackluster performance in the Baldwin Tournament, and were not playing very good volleyball. But something happened between the Saturday playing of the Baldwin tournament and the next Tuesday when the Panthers traveled back to Baldwin to take on the Bulldogs in a Frontier League match.
The Panthers destroyed the Bulldogs on their home court that night and really started to play “Panther Volleyball”, and that continued for the better part of September and October. Although the Panthers stock slipped a bit following the Spring Hill Tournament, that was more a product of the rise of Spring Hill rather than bad play by the Panthers.
But the Panthers stock slipped badly last weekend at the Frontier League Tournament, when they went 1-5 on the day, and have started to tinker with their line-up which has caused confusion at times, and seriously damaged their changes, at least in my opinion.
Second, the Spring Hill Broncos. Like Paola, the Broncos fortunes have risen and fallen through the course of the last couple of weeks. As I said above, the Broncos rose to the top of my favorite list after their performance in their own tournament. The took on all comers, falling short of the championship, but playing good, inspired volleyball against some very difficult, bigger class schools. Plus they defeated their two sub-state rivals in head to head matches, and rather easily.
But again, like Paola, the Broncos were not sharp in the Frontier League event, and were beaten badly by Louisburg, and although they beat Paola, they won the first game 31-29 before losing the second 25-10. If one point would have gone the other way late in that first game, the Panthers would have won, and the outcomes of later matches might have been different. The Broncos struggled to a 2-5 record in the tournament and have to have confidence issues heading into next weekend.
First, the Louisburg Wildcats. Let me preface these remarks by saying, there’s a whole host of reasons why I think the Wildcats will win this tournament, and one very big reason why they might not.
We’ll get the bad news out of the way first -- host teams seldom win their own sub state tournaments. I don’t know why, but just look back a couple of years, 2009, at Spring Hill, Paola defeats Ottawa for the championship. 2008, at Paola, well, I already told you about that one.
So, now that I’ve told you why the Wildcats have a big strike against them, I’ll tell you a few reasons why I think they will succeed.
First and foremost, they’re playing pretty good volleyball, at the right time of the season. They have the best front row of the three team’s I’ve mentioned and when they’re on, they can hit with just about anyone. Marisa Mackey, Colleen O’Brien and Emily Lemke are very tough, and they you bring in Anna Bell off the bench and there’s very little drop off in play. Kate Dixon is efficient and accurate in distributing the ball, and every one of those girls know how to get down to the floor to dig and return shots.
Second, and maybe most importantly, they’ve played, AND BEATEN, every team in the tournament with the exception of Anderson County, and with apologies to the Bulldogs, I don’t think they will be a factor in the event. Every other team the Wildcats might face in the bracket they have played and beaten, some multiple times.
The Wildcats are not a lock, they haven’t been an unbeatable team this season, far from it. They have a nasty habit of not finishing games, getting ahead and then not putting teams away. But they demonstrated a bit more of a killer instinct on Saturday, and if they can harness that, they can win.
Anything can happen, witness the Panthers last year. It’s a one and done, three game sprint, but right now, for my money, I’m betting on the Wildcats.
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