The Marion volleyball team took second place at the Belle Plaine tournament Saturday after going 1-2 at their home quad Sept. 27.
Warrior senior Whitney Gordon received all-tournament team honors at Belle Plaine.
?Overall I was proud of our girls,? said head coach Jim Versch. ?We went 4-1, beating some good teams. We seemed to really gel in the first four matches.
?We came back from some early losses and personnel changes to still win. Overall a pretty good day!?
Belle Plaine – The Warriors started off right with a win over Attica, 25-21 and 25-18.
?We got the ball to our hitters and really played great defense,? Versch said.
Marion went 14-25, 25-17, 25-23 to pick up a win over Belle Plaine before repeating the theme win a 23-25, 25-16, 25-15 match win over Otis-Bison.
Versch said senior hitter Annie Whitaker sustained a bone bruise injury in the matches, but good floor defense and mixing up attackers on offense helped them to the wins.
The Warriors picked up an easy win over South Barber, 25-13 and 25-8, thanks in part to great ace serves from Briana Hall.
Marion dropped their final match with Wichita Trinity 21-25 and 12-25.
?We came out ready to play but lost the first game and didn’t really compete in the second,? Versch said. ?Wichita Trinity is a good team with a lot of tall players and after we got blocked a couple of times we really quit hitting.?
The Warriors went 4-1 at Belle Plaine for a second place finish.
Senior hitter Whitney Gordon totalled 32 kills on the day, with Briana Hall contributing 14 kills and Annie Whitaker posting seven.
Marion Quad – The Warriors began well with a win over Inman 25-17 and 25-14.
But they dropped the next two matches, losing to Trinity Catholic 18-25, 25-16, 22-25 and to Ell-Saline 23-25, 23-25.
?We came out against Inman ready to play ball, great play from our setters getting the ball to our hitters,? said head coach Jim Versch.
?We had seen Inman three times before, but this was the first chance we got to play them.
?The next two games were very similar. We competed the entire match, but could not finish. They were close games but letdowns at key moments really hurt us.?
Senior hitter Whitney Gordon had 16 kills on the night, with teammates Annie Whitaker and Kaelyn Thierolf adding three kills each.
Coming up – The Warriors were scheduled to play in the Sedgwick quad against the Cardinals and Canton-Galva Sept. 4.
They are scheduled to enter Heart of America league tournament play at Sedgwick next Saturday.
