Louisburg beats Bonner Springs, goes winless at Lansing tourney

By Andy Brown
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Updated: September 13, 2022

Andy Brown / Louisburg Sports Zone

Louisburg senior Claire Brown goes up for a kill during a match earlier this season. The Lady Cats defeated Bonner Springs on Thursday, but went 0-4 on Saturday at Lansing.

LANSING — In a week that started with three wins for the Louisburg volleyball team, ended with an appearance in the toughest tournament the Lady Cats will compete in all season.

Louisburg traveled to the Lansing Invitational on Saturday and competed against numerous Class 5A and 6A teams.

The Lady Cats didn’t have the results they were hoping for as they went 0-4 in pool play and saw their tournament come to an end.

Louisburg fell to Lansing, Olathe West, Lawrence and De Soto, and two of those schools (Olathe West and Lansing) are ranked in their respective classes.

De Soto and Lawrence were Louisburg’s first two opponents of the day and the Lady Cats put up a fight early. They defeated De Soto in the first set 25-21, but dropped the next two 25-15 and 25-22.

Louisburg (3-7) then went on to to fall to Lawrence 25-20 and 25-18, before losing to Olathe West (25-10, 25-14) and Lansing (25-10, 25-16).

“The Lansing tournament is tough and filled with strong teams all around,” Louisburg coach Leanna Willer said. “Our first two matches of the day against De Soto and Lawrence could have gone our way, but unfortunately we were unable to close them out. We had our opportunities to come out on top but failed to execute in the end.

“We let errors pile up on top of each other instead of ending runs quickly. That being said, I think we learned more about ourselves and are coming into this week hungry for a win.”

Claire Brown led the Wildcats at the net as she finished with a team-high 17 kills, while Allie Kennedy added 16 kills and a team-high three blocks.

Emma Prettyman and Hailey Sword both finished with double figure kills with 10. Junior setter Megan Quinn ran the offense well with a team-best 55 assists.

Sword led the Lady Cats from behind the service line with four aces and junior Bronwynn Williams added three of her own.

Brown finished with team-high 33 digs on defense and senior Adyson Ross had 31.

Louisburg will try and get back on track Tuesday when it travels to Spring Hill for a Frontier League dual. The varsity will start at 6:30 p.m.

Lady Cats get road win at Bonner Springs

In its second Frontier League match of the season, Louisburg picked up its first victory in the league with a 3-1 win last Thursday at Bonner Springs.

The Lady Cats earned a hard fought 25-21, 29-31, 25-22 and 25-15 win over the Braves to get their third straight victory at the time.

“It was a great game for us against Bonner Springs,” Willer said. “We weren’t perfect and we definitely made a lot more errors than we would like to see, but our energy, enthusiasm, and drive to win was evident as we battled for every point. When we made mistakes or Bonner made a good play, we didn’t let ourselves spiral, but rather we recovered quickly and focused on the next play. That allowed us to bounce back after losing that heartbreaker of a second set.”

Louisburg found itself in a back and fourth second set, but the Lady Cats found a way to bounce back and take the next two.

Defense was big for Louisburg as it helped turn away Bonner Springs’ top hitter, Mariyah Noel, as several different occasions. Offensively, setter Megan Quinn did a good job distributing the ball to different hitters.

“I think our blockers did a good job of finding Mariyah Noel and worked to slow her down a bit, forcing her to try some off speed shots,” Willer said. “Our setter Megan Quinn did a nice job of distributing the ball to all of our hitters to present a balanced attack using all of our threats.

“I thought our energy and intensity lasted throughout the entire match, and a large part of that had to do with our ‘student section’ of our JV and freshman teams. Our girls on the court fed off of the crowd and loved having everyone so involved.”