Wellington’s Bliss Johnson, the libero.

By Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow report — It was Senior Night for the Wellington girls volleyball team, meaning they have wrapped up the home portion of the regular season. But the Crusaders have every intention of returning to their home gymnasium for a sub-state tournament.

The Crusaders flipped the script in their two triangular matches on Tuesday. They lost to No. 2 ranked Andale 25-19, 25-16, before defeating Rose Hill 25-19, 25-16. Look at those two scores again. They are exactly the same. So what are the chances of that happening, all you mathematicians out there?

With the split, Wellington is sitting at 15-6 and has entered the top 10 of the Kansas Volleyball Association poll for the first time in years. More importantly, Wellington is sitting at No. 5 in the Class 4A-West standings, just outside the top four threshold of hosting a tournament. The top four seeds will host a four-team tournament in a 16-team race. More on that in a bit.

Wellington girls were all smiles in the early going vs. Andale.

The triangular was huge for Wellington for two reasons. Wellington played an elite state-championship caliber team for the first time this season. And against Rose Hill it was about avenging a loss from three weeks ago.

“We’re better,” said Kaylie Lagasse, Wellington head volleyball coach. “We made Andale nervous with our early runs. I think if we can clean up our passes and our self-inflicted mistakes, we could beat them in Andale.”

Wellington travels to Andale next Tuesday. The Indians are 23-1 with their only loss to Bishop Carroll, a one-loss team in 5A, on Sept. 13.

Andale had been looming all season. It was the last AV-CTL Div. IV team Wellington hasn’t seen this year. While Wellington has seen some very good talent thus far, it hadn’t seen the Indians.

The Crusaders were clearly locked in and led for a good portion of the first match. But Andale managed to pull away down the stretch for the first win. In the second set, Wellington again kept it close early, but the Indians would outlast it in the latter stage of the game.

Vivienne Wright spikes the ball over these two Andale defenders.

In the nightcap, Wellington opened with a five-point lead and maintained it the rest of the way to beat Rose Hill 25-19 in the first set. It would then open up a 4-0 lead against the Rockets, allowed Rose Hill to pull within one, kept it even throughout the mid-set, before pulling away with nine of the final 10 points to win the match. This was especially gratifying because the Wellington team felt it let the Rose Hill steal a victory the last time it was in town.

“I felt like our serving was so much better tonight,” Lagasse said, comparing the two home triangulars. “I think then we were missing what seemed like 800 serves. We did so much better tonight. Our main focus, though, is our defense. Our passing has to get better.”

Mikayla Ybarra, setter.

Still a lot of volleyball to play. As mentioned, Wellington travels to Andale for a triangular with Augusta next Tuesday. It will then play in the Clearwater Tournament, always a good late-season tournament.

Then it has triangulars at McPherson and El Dorado. The El Dorado triangular on Oct. 16 is huge because Mulvane will be playing there. Currently, the two teams are neck and neck for the fourth seed. Mulvane is 14-6, Wellington is 16-7.

The latest Class 4A KVA rankings: