Olathe Northwest wins Kansas Class 6A volleyball title

It took two three-set victories to make it happen, but Olathe Northwest made history on Saturday by winning the first Class 6A state volleyball championship in school history.

After surviving a three-set semifinal with Shawnee Mission East (20-25, 25-10, 25-17) the Ravens outlasted 2015 state champ Blue Valley West, 25-19, 22-25, 25-17 in the final, capping a 5-0 weekend and a 38-4 season at the Kansas Expocentre.

The Ravens, who finished fourth in 2015, lost to Blue Valley twice earlier in the year, including a three-set defeat, but took control down the stretch in the third set on Saturday against the Jaguars. The loss was just the second for the Jaguars in 44 matches on the year.

“It’s awesome, it feels really good right now,” Olathe Northwest coach Barry Lenth said. “I was really impressed with how we fought through. We do a lot of drills in practice where they’re behind and have to come back and win. We do a lot of drills where we try to put as much pressure as we can on them and it paid off today.

“It’s a credit to the group of kids we have. We set goals at the beginning of the year, and it was (Sunflower) league champion, sub-state champion and state champion, and these last two weeks we’ve had the best practices we’ve had all year and they really dialed in and focused.”

In the first set of the championship match Olathe Northwest trailed early but took the lead for good on a kill from senior Audrey Fisher that put the Ravens up 10-9. Olathe Northwest went on to build a 22-15 lead and closed out the set on a block from junior Taylor Kuper and a Fisher kill.

Olathe Northwest led midway through the second set before the Jaguars rallied for the three-point victory. That set up the decisive third set, which the Ravens led most of the way behind Fisher and 6-foot-2 senior Tyanna Omazic, who had back-to-back kills as Olathe Northwest opened up a 23-16 advantage on the way to closing out the match.

“We just had great energy as a team, going after every ball, not making mistakes, and it was definitely a team thing,” Omazic said. “I think the main thing is we went out to have fun and not put any pressure on ourselves but just have fun. And winning is so much fun.

“There’s definitely no individualism. It’s not an I, it’s we on our team.”

Hannah Engelken, a 6-1 junior, helped keep BV West in the hunt along with 5-11 senior Madison Lilley.

Shawnee Mission East bounced back from the semifinal loss to Olathe Northwest to finish third. The Lancers took a 25-16, 25-17 win over Manhattan in the third-place match.

St. James second in 5A

Despite losing seven seniors off its 2015 state championship team, including current Stanford freshmen Jenna Gray and Audriana Fitzmorris, St. James came within a whisker on Saturday in Topeka of winning the eighth state title in program history.

The Thunder dropped a three-set decision to Shawnee Heights, which took a 25-18, 25-27, 25-22 win in the Class 5A championship match.

St. James had outlasted rival St. Thomas Aquinas 21-25, 26-24 and 25-18 in the semifinals earlier on Saturday.

And the Thunder survived a match point in the second set of the final to force a third set before Shawnee Heights edged the Thunder behind 6-foot-3 Nebraska recruit Jazz Sweet and 6-4 Illinois recruit Megan Cooney.

But while St. James coach Nancy Dorsey would have loved to have won the championship she was proud of the performance of her team, which was the No. 8 seed in the field.

“I’ve been coaching for a long time and I’ve coached some amazing players and even better kids, but I can’t say I’ve been more proud because everybody had them beat in every match we played,” Dorsey said.

“Every match we played, it was like on paper they’re going to beat you, but we had so much belief in what they could do and they trusted us and they trusted each other and they played hard every point and we just fought so hard.”

Junior Allison Coens had a big championship match for the Thunder, which finished the season 25-17, but Shawnee Heights, which had four players between 6-foot and 6-4, had just a little bit more firepower down the stretch.

Aquinas, 35-11, bounced back from the semifinal loss to take third place with a 25-27, 25-19, 25-16 win over Emporia.

Heritage Christian wins 2A title

Heritage Christian came into the Kansas Class 2A volleyball tournament as the No. 6 seed, with a 32-8 record — more losses than all but two teams in the tournament. But that didn’t stop them from taking home the Class 2A state volleyball title Saturday at White Auditorium in Emporia.

Heritage defeated the No. 1 overall seed, Flint Hills, Saturday morning —25-20, 25-20 — to advance to the championship game, then beat Central Plains, 25-12, 25-15, for the trophy.

This story was originally published October 29, 2016 at 6:25 PM with the headline "Olathe Northwest wins Kansas Class 6A volleyball title."