By Kai Raymer (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Calm, confident and poised.
Coming off a hard-fought district-title win against rival Fair Grove, the Strafford High School volleyball team rolled to convincing sectional and quarterfinal victories on its home court Saturday afternoon.
The Indians (31-4-1 overall) dispatched Clever 25-15, 25-17 in the sectional round, then Sarcoxie 25-19, 25-12 in a quarterfinal matchup.
Strafford advances to next weekend’s state volleyball championships in Cape Girardeau for the second time in three years.
“I’m super proud of these kids. They’re hard-working kids,” said Strafford coach Ashley Bough. “They’re gamers. They like to turn it on. They’re motivated by, ‘Yes, we’re coming back at you.’ They respond to that very well.”
The victory was especially satisfying for Strafford’s upperclassmen. Last year, a six-loss Mountain View-Birch Tree/Liberty ousted a one-loss Strafford team in the sectional round.
“It feels so good because we knew that feeling of losing. We didn’t want that to happen again,” said Strafford senior Karly Soden.
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Strafford clung to a 15-14 lead in the first set against Sarcoxie. A Madi Bowles kill gave Strafford a 20-17 lead and the Indians pulled away from there.
Bowles, a senior transfer from Kickapoo, was a major factor around the net. She had nine kills and three blocks against Sarcoxie.
“She reaches at such a high level that she hits up and over the block a lot of times,” Bough said.
Strafford led comfortably throughout the second set, including margins of 10-4 and 20-8.
Allisann Nichols had 10 digs, Emma Webb served two aces and Chloe Rear distributed 13 assists for the Indians.
“(Strafford) kept their composure really, really well no matter what was happening,” said Sarcoxie coach Lindsay Perigo. “They’re a tough blocking team. I thought they got pretty high up over the net and saw the court very well. They had great setters who distributed the ball where it needed to be.”
Bough said the Indians played relatively stress-fee compared to Tuesday night’s emotional win over Fair Grove.
“That game for us is a huge mental game,” she said. “I felt like we had one less hurdle to overcome today. It was still going to be difficult playing-wise and maintaining our consistency, but we didn’t have that rivalry aspect going on.
“I think that helped a little bit, but I also think the kids really used the win (over Fair Grove) as, ‘Hey, ‘we’re this much closer. We don’t want to short ourselves anything. We don’t want that feeling we had last year.’”
Sarcoxie finishes 28-5-2 overall. The Bears, who were also district champs last year, were in the state quarterfinal round for the first time since 1995.
They graduate five seniors: Aubrey Carr, Kerleen Amando, Micah Edwards, Reagan Roberson and Sarah Mandera.
“They’ve had an awesome, awesome season,” Perigo said. “We had some kids play hurt today that still played amazing; you wouldn’t be able to tell they were playing injured. They stick together as a group and work very, very hard. They’ve come a very long way from where they were a few years ago. They’ve grown a lot.”
Strafford will compete in three pool-play matches (9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.) on Friday, Oct. 27 at the Show-Me Center in Cape Girardeau. The Class 2 title match is at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28 at the Show-Me Center.
The Indians will be looking for the first state title in program history, after losing to St. Charles Lutheran in the 2015 Class 2 title match.
“Our thing this year has been about team chemistry: make your teammate look good,” Soden said. “We’ve tried to bond and get closer to each other off the court so that we’d be closer on the court, too.”
