Wildcat volleyball takes second at Atchison to stop losing skid

By Andy Brown
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Updated: October 17, 2024

***Louisburg’s McKenna Lohse (left) and Adelyn Moore team up for block during the Wildcats’ Oct. 8 match at Tonganoxie. On Saturday, the Wildcats took second at the Atchison Invitational.***

ATCHISON — Going into the Atchison Invitational on Saturday, it had been a pretty tough stretch for the Louisburg volleyball team.

The Wildcats had suffered seven straight losses going into the tournament and needed some positives to happen in the biggest way. They got what they were looking for.

Louisburg won three of four matches at the round-robin tournament and finished second overall in Atchison to improve its record to 17-15 on the season.

The Wildcats opened the tournament with a 25-12 and 25-8 victory over Schlagle, but lost in three sets to Shawnee Mission South, 25-20, 19-25 and 25-19. Louisburg rebounded with a 25-14 and 25-19 win over Atchison and ended with a 3-set win over Perry-Lecompton, 18-25, 25-15 and 25-15.

“It was great to get back on the winning side of things on Saturday and put an end to the rough streak we had been having,” Louisburg coach Leanna Willer said. “It was definitely needed. Finishing second at that tournament definitely helped our team confidence, especially ending on that win against Perry-Lecompton. I think we learned some things about our team and we showed some growth throughout the day as well.”

Louisburg faced adversity against Perry-Lecompton as it lost the first set and was the verge of a tough loss to end its day. However, the Wildcats rallied to win the next two sets in convincing fashion.

It started at the serving line for the Wildcats as they tallied 10 aces in the match, including three each from McKenna Lohse and Aspen Coulter, while Addi Mallett had two.

Sophomore setter Adelyn Moore got her hitters involved as junior Caileigh Kilgore had a team-high 10 kills and Lohse was right behind her with nine. Senior Evyn Richardson, Mallett and Moore had five kills each.

Defensively, Mallett, Coulter and senior Ally Brown led the way with eight digs each and Kilgore had seven.

“The final match against Perry-Lecompton was great because we saw a major turn-around between the first and second sets,” Willer said. “We had some leaders step up in big ways, and the rest of the team really bought in to what we wanted to get out of that game. The energy and atmosphere completely changed for the better, and I’m really proud of the whole group for making that happen.”

***Louisburg junior Delaney Nelsen digs up a ball during match on Oct. 8 in Tonganoxie.***

On the day, the Wildcats had a lot of success serving as they tallied 33 aces in the four matches, including nine from Moore and seven each from Coulter and Lohse.

Moore also directed the Wildcat attack with 84 assists on the day. Lohse led the way at the net with 11 kills, while Kilgore and Mallett each had eight. Richardson and senior Katie McKain had six each.

Defensively, Richardson had a team-high seven blocks, while Coulter had a team-best 33 digs. Brown finished with 20 digs, Moore had 17 and senior Jaden Bentz had 15.

“I thought that both of our middles (Richardson and Lohse) really had a big weekend, and I’ll give credit to Adelyn for making sure that we were running our offense through them when we could,” Willer said. “Bringing them into the picture more often also gave our pin hitters a little more breathing room and space around the block, so it helped everyone be more successful.”

Louisburg will try to keep its winning ways going Thursday as they travel to Wamego for a triangular with Ottawa in its regular season finale. Matches begin at 5 p.m.

Wildcats drop league finale at Tonganoxie

Louisburg saw its Frontier League schedule come to a close on Oct. 8 when the Wildcats traveled to Tonganoxie.

Unfortunately, they were unable to get that final league victory. Tonganoxie won in straight sets, 25-20, 25-22 and 25-21.

“Ending our league schedule at Tonganoxie last week was tough, and we knew it would be a tough match up after seeing them the previous Saturday at the Ottawa tournament,” Willer said. “We had a stronger game plan going into the match, but unfortunately we couldn’t quite execute it as we had designed. We did not play our best, and struggled with serve receive and making errors in general.

“To Tonganoxie’s credit, they played a very clean game of volleyball and just didn’t make a lot of errors which put them in the better position to win. Every team in this league is a strong contender. Although I believe we could have performed better, Tonganoxie was the better team that night.”

The Wildcats committed 41 errors on the night, which was hard to battle back from against a good Chieftain team.

Junior McKenna Lohse led all Wildcat hitters with nine kills, while Addi Mallett had six. Evyn Richardson, Caileigh Kilgore and Delaney Nelsen each had five kills.