Lady Cats fall to Bishop Miege at Ottawa, finish second overall

Louisburg middle hitter Haley Cain goes up for a kill against Bishop Miege on Saturday in the Ottawa Invitational. The Lady Cats fell to Bishop Miege in three sets, but finished the day 4-1 and took second overall.

 

OTTAWA – The Louisburg High School volleyball team was on quite a roll going into the Ottawa Invitational on Saturday at Ottawa High School.

The Lady Cats won their first two matches of the day to give them at 14-match winning streak, with state-ranked Bishop Miege next on the slate in the round-robin tournament.

Louisburg looked every bit of the No. 2-ranked team in Class 4A as it took the first set 25-22. The Lady Cats were on their way to winning their 15th straight, but Miege had different ideas.

Bishop Miege rallied back to defeat Louisburg, 25-13 and 25-14, and handed the Lady Cats’ their lone loss of the day. Louisburg finished the tournament with a 4-1 record and took second overall.

“The team played well during the first set against Bishop Miege, but we struggled with serve receive during the second and third,” Louisburg coach Jessica Compliment said. “We made too many unforced errors, and against a good team like Miege, we can’t do that.”

In the three tournaments the Lady Cats have competed in this season, they have finished in the top two in all three events.

Louisburg (23-6) opened the tournament with an easy 25-5, 25-13 victory over Highland Park. Olathe West, a Class 6A program was next, and the Lady Cats won the first set 25-22 and then rallied to win the second 25-23.

Following its loss to Bishop Miege, Louisburg ended the tournament with a 25-19 and 25-15 win over Ottawa, and then downed Basehor-Linwood 25-23 and 25-18 to complete play on a positive note.

“Overall we had a pretty decent day,” Compliment said. “We saw a few teams we’d played before in Olathe West, Ottawa and Basehor. We actually saw Olathe West twice before and they played us tough again. Sometimes it can be hard to beat a team for the third time.

“It was good to finish the day on two wins, but I don’t feel like we really played our best on Saturday. We were missing some energy throughout the day.”

Senior Anna Dixon provided Louisburg with strong play at the net and also in the back row. Dixon had a team-high 54 kills – including 16 against Bishop Miege and 15 in the win over Olathe West. She also led the team in digs with 34, including 15 in the match against Miege.

Sophomore Carleigh Pritchard was second on the team with 22 kills, including 10 against Highland Park and also led Louisburg with six blocks on the day. Junior Haley Cain finished with 15 kills, while Erin Lemke and Carson Buffington had 14 and 11, respectively.

Junior Riley Kallevig was strong from behind the service line with nine aces and freshman Davis Guetterman had seven, including five against Highland Park to start the day. Freshman Rinny McMullen had six aces, with five coming in the win over Highland Park as well.

Both Guetterman and McMullen ran the Lady Cat attack well as the two combined for 109 assists in the five matches. McMullen led the way with 57 and Guetterman had 52.

Defensively alongside Dixon, Kallevig was second on the team with 32 digs and libero Reilly Ratliff-Becher finished with 30.

Louisburg will take a little time off before it returns to action on Oct. 11 when it travels to Olathe North for a dual and will follow it up with the Emporia Invitational on Oct. 13.