Girls volleyball undefeated in tournament over Homecoming weekend

Gehrig Prozorowski, Feature Editor|October 14, 2017

After+winning+the+Ozark+Grand+Slam+tournament%2C+the+girls+volleyball+team+poses+for+a+picture.+The+team+went+undefeated+in+the+tournament.+

After winning the Ozark Grand Slam tournament, the girls volleyball team poses for a picture. The team went undefeated in the tournament.

Last weekend, the girls volleyball team traveled to Ozark High School near Springfield, MO for the Ozark Grand Slam tournament and returned undefeated.

The tournament was set up as pool play.

“Pool play is kind of like Round Robin, so you are set up into different pools to play, and you play each team in [the pool] and that sets up your ranking for the afternoon,” senior Kathryn Wesolich said.

The girls played against Greenwood, Republic, Nixa, Ozark and Helias Catholic, and they won every game.

“We’ve had three really good tournaments this season, and in each one we’ve really focused a lot on finishing and really competing no matter what the score is and making sure that we’re consistent,” Wesolich said. “No matter what the score is, we were competing to the best of our ability.”

Despite winning every game, the tournament had its challenges.

“In the semifinals, we were playing Ozark and it was 21 to 13 and we came back and ended up winning the game, so our team learned how to fight back and not give up,” senior Merry Gebel said.

The team missed Homecoming over the weekend because of the tournament.

At Olive Garden, the team enjoys a dinner organized by the coaches. The girls received roses and dressed up because they missed out on the Homecoming dance. “It was sad that we had to miss out on that experience, but in the long run, I think the tournament was more beneficial,” Merry Gebel said.

“When we found out that we were going to be missing Homecoming, everyone was a little upset, but I think that everyone just kind of buckled down for the weekend and we just kept saying ‘we didn’t come here to lose’,” Wesolich said.

Now girls volleyball looks towards Districts and hopefully State.

“Districts are next week, so with postseason coming up super quick, it was nice to have some really good, challenging matches to prepare,” Wesolich said. “We played some really good teams similar to the ones that we’re going to be facing in postseason.”

Volleyball faced similar competition in the tournament as they did at State last year.

“We played Ozark last year at State, so [the tournament] helped with playing more teams and getting a bigger variety of competition because when you just play teams in your district or in your school, you don’t play everyone you could see in the season,” Gebel said.

Girls volleyball plays in Districts next Tuesday, Oct. 17 where they face off against the winner of the game between Washington High School and Rockwood Summit High School.