High school volleyball roundup: St. Mary’s closes in on conference crown

A Senior Night victory over Lone Jack tonight would clinch at least a tie for the Crossroads Conference title for St. Mary’s.
The visiting Trojans remained undefeated in the conference at 8-0 and handed Maranatha Academy its first loss with a 25-17, 25-17, 25-8, 25-19 victory Monday night.
Alexis Nibert paced the Trojans (15-3-1) with 14 kills.
“They were real scrappy and I understand why they were undefeated in conference,” St. Mary’s coach Mike Espinosa said of Maranatha. “I was playing 11 kids and I thought Maranatha ran out of gas in the third game that was the turning point.
“We struggled with our passing a little bit. A few kids were under the weather but they played real hard and that’s why they pulled through.”
GRAIN VALLEY 25-26, ODESSA 20-24: Paige Mead knocked down seven kills and Olivia Olivarez totaled 21 digs as Grain Valley remained tied for first in the Missouri River Valley Conference West with a win at Odessa.
“Offensively we did well and Olivia did a good job of digging balls, but defensive errors made it closer than it should have been,” Eagles coach Keri Peterson said. “Emotionally we weren’t quite into it, but we are still trying to recover from a third of our team being out sick. We had everyone back tonight.”
Megan Epping added six kills for the Eagles (17-3-1, 6-1 MRVC West), who are tied with Pleasant Hill atop the conference standings.
Odessa won the junior varsity match, 25-16, 25-18.
TRUMAN 25-25, BELTON 22-8: A balanced attack propelled Truman to a rout of Belton in a non-conference match Monday.
Easton Harper had eight kills and Lauribeth Agee had 11 digs and six kills as the Patriots improved to 14-9-1.
Kathryn Ruddy had 10 digs and served two aces, Kassidy Ritchel added four blocks and six kills and Taryn Nash had 19 assists and nine digs.
Truman’s junior varsity also won, 25-19, 25-15.
 EXCELSIOR SPRINGS 25-25, OAK GROVE 15-15: A tough Oak Grove season continued in a home Missouri River Valley Conference West Division loss to Excelsior Springs.
The Panthers fell to 2-17 overall and 0-7 in the conference.
Oak Grove claimed the junior varsity match 25-23, 26-24.
LEE’S SUMMIT WEST 25-25, RAYTOWN SOUTH 10-11: A strong Lee’s Summit West team was too much for host Raytown South in a Suburban Middle Six match.
Paige Vanderpool had seven kills, Megan McGehee had seven kills and three blocks, Kyle Rice totaled five kills and nine assists, Katie Douglas added four kills, Kaitlyn Drawe posted two kills and 13 assists and Haylee Gregory had two kills for the conference champion Titans (23-2, 9-0).
“I was very pleased,” West coach Mark Rice said. “They played with a lot more emotion, and that’s what we need.”
West was a 25-18, 25-8 junior varsity winner.