By BO ALLEGRUCCI

Salina Journal

TOPEKA -- Eight-thirty in the morning is too early to be doing much of anything, let alone taking on the defending state champion at the Class 5A state volleyball tournament.

But for the second straight year, Salina South woke up to Kansas City superpower Bishop Miege in the first round of the 5A state tourney at the Kansas Expocentre, and for the second straight year, the Stags made sure South started its Friday on the wrong foot. Miege bulldozed the Cougars 25-8 in the first game of the day before grinding out a three-set victory (25-8, 23-25, 25-16).

The 18-time state champions went on to win pool A and retain their top seed for today's championship round, while seventh-seeded Salina South never did find its groove.

The Cougars were the only team to take a game from Miege during pool play, but lost two more three-setters -- to Lansing (25-23, 15-25, 25-19) and Bishop Carroll (18-25, 25-21, 25-22) -- in agonizing fashion and finish the season 31-13.

"It just wasn't a good day all the way around," South coach Mary Pat Weese said. "We were just so inconsistent from one game to the next, and it's been that way for us a lot this year.

"We had a lot of players back and the expectations were there, but we just didn't have the mental toughness we needed to finish games off today."

Miege didn't need the help, but South committed 15 errors in the first game of the morning match, including unforced mistakes on 10 of the final 14 points. A couple close calls went against the Cougars, but South rallied and re-rallied in the second game to make things interesting.

South trailed 4-0 early in game two following back-to-back aces by Grace Whitley, but the Cougars took their first lead at 17-13 after three Sally Thompson stuffs and a pair of Miege errors.

The Stags answered with a 9-2 run and regained a 22-19 lead with a Laura Skaggs ace, but South won six of the last seven points and evened the match with three straight Thompson kills to finish game two.

Another Thompson kill tied the score early in the third and final game, but the Cougars would not lead again. Whitley, Shelby Workman and Adrianna Maurer made four kills apiece as Miege took game three and the match.

"The girls were OK with playing Miege first, and I think that second game pumped them up a little bit and gave them some confidence," Weese said. "We could've come out losing two games and been dejected the rest of the day, but I think it showed them they can do it. If you can beat Miege, you can beat anybody."

A two-hour layoff before a make-or-break second-round match with Lansing, however, wasn't the best piece of scheduling for South's momentum. The Cougars took the court against the Lions just after 11:30 a.m., and Lansing held on to win game one after 11 ties and seven lead changes.

South led by two on four separate occasions, but the Lions tied it at 16 with a Lisa Angello ace and led by as many as four down the stretch before holding onto a 25-23 decision.

"We shouldn't have let that first game get away from us," Weese said. "We had a lot of unforced errors and gave them silly points at bad times, and then we started pulling things back too much and playing not to lose instead of playing to win."

But just as they did with Miege, South responded with another second-game surge against Lansing. Thompson made a pair of kills and Goodness spiked home three straight points as South grabbed a 6-1 lead and evened the match with a 25-15 beating.

Thompson put the Cougars up 1-0 with a stuff to start decisive game three, but that would be South's last lead. Lansing used an elastic defense and a three-cylinder offense of Angello, her younger sister Lori and Rachel Milnark (19 combined kills in game three) to slowly take control.

Milnark served up an ace to put the Lions up 11-8, and Lori Angello registered five kills in a 12-point span to give Lansing an impenetrable 18-12 cushion.

The win assured the Lions a semifinal date with St. Thomas Aquinas, the top seed in Pool B, and assured Salina South's season wouldn't extend past Friday.

"Lansing's defense was really good," Weese said. "They kept everything alive and got to a lot of balls, and they were probably better at winning the longer points than we were.

"Lansing and Miege both used a lot of right-side hitting, and we were not blocking well on our left side. Usually the stronger hitters come at you on their right side, but both those teams had good left-handed girls, and we hadn't seen a lot of that all year long."

The Cougars came out loose and relaxed against Bishop Carroll, whom they'd already beaten once this year at a tournament in McPherson, but South eventually fell in three games despite winning the first game easily and holding an 5-1 lead in game three.

Goodness led the Cougars with 45 kills and 42 digs Friday while fellow seniors Brea Campbell and Jenna Wolf combined for 85 assists. Thompson had 27 kills and a team-high nine stuffs.

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