The Blue Springs volleyball team came up agonizingly short of its first state championship.
A near flawless 14-2 run in the third game of the Class 4 Missouri State High School Activities Association Volleyball Championships Saturday at Municipal Auditorium led Ozark to a 28-26, 22-25, 25-17 victory over Blue Springs in the Wildcats’ first championship appearance.
“There are 103 schools that would love to be here, but I still feel miserable,” second-year Wildcats coach Katie Grusing said after her team finished a memorable season in disappointing fashion. “Nothing seemed to click for us in that third game and Ozark didn’t make many mistakes. I don’t think they made any mistakes on the (14-2) run that pretty much helped them win the championship.
“The girls have a lot of fight, and came back to make the score respectable, but we just couldn’t find a way to come all the way back.”
The 36-5-1 Tigers jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the third game, only to see the Wildcats come back and knot the score at 3-all.
Ozark held a 5-4 lead, than ran off a 14-2 outburst to control the third and deciding game.
“I don’t think a team has done that to us all season,” Wildcats senior middle hitter Lisa Henning said. “We were frustrated and nothing was going right for us. They made the big run and we came back to make it somewhat close (21-16), but we just couldn’t get over the hump.
“There’s a reason they were in the championship game – they’re good, very good.”
Mallori Fournier, who has been one of the Wildcats’ top servers all season, scored six points in a row near the end of the third game, but it was too little, too late.
“We can always count on Mallori for some big serves,” Grusing said. “When we got it to 21-16, I was thinking, ‘We’re back in this thing.’ But they had a couple of blocks on the front row and we just couldn’t come back.”
The loss meant that setter Kiely Culbertson will not be able to join her father, Randy, as a state champion. Randy Culbertson was the starting guard on a Raytown South basketball team that won the state title in 1970.
“We used a lot of energy to come back in the first game, and even more to win the second game,” Culbertson said, “and I just don’t know what happened in the third game. When it was 19-6 it didn’t look like we had a chance. Then, we made it close, but we dug too deep of a hole to climb out of.”
Culbertson made a play in the first game that left fans from both teams buzzing as she raced near the stands to save a ball that was eventually slammed to the Ozark side of the net by Henning to knot the score at 26-all.
“I thought we had it then,” Henning said.
Added Grusing: “After that great play by Kiely and Lisa’s kill, I thought we were going to win the first game. But it didn’t happen.”
Ozark scored the final two points to claim the 28-26 win and a 1-0 advantage.
This was Blue Springs’ fourth final four appearance and its highest showing.
“When they’re 25 years old, they aren’t going to remember the score of any of these games,” Grusing said after her team finished 36-5-1. “But they’re going to remember all the fun they had, the friendships they made and just how special this season was.”
Henning finished with 16 kills.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s over,” Henning said. “I’ll probably still go to the gym for practice Monday.”
Before the start of the championship match, Independence resident David Thompson was honored as the Missouri State Volleyball Official of the Year.
