Leopold volleyball team to begin play at Class 1 final four

~ The volleyball championships open today with pool play at the Show Me Center

Anyone watching a Leopold volleyball game can see that coach Sandy Davis tries to remain positive regardless of how her team may be playing at the moment.

"You'll see me smiling a lot on the sidelines to keep them calm," Davis said. "My dad always says, 'Keep a smile on your face because when you're calm and relaxed they will feed off you.' And that's what I try to do. Sometimes it's harder than others, but with this group that's how they handle things. They're very calm."

Her players agreed that she's been telling them to just "play our game" when they compete at the Class 1 state volleyball final four today.

Davis has received information from other area coaches about Class 1 final four opponents Winona, Osceola and Sante Fe, but believes that her players need to focus on playing well themselves, rather than what the other team will do.

"They're going to have to play, and there's no pressure on them," Davis said. "Now is the time just to have fun, set their goal again and just to continue to do what they're doing. It's going to be a lot of competition, but that's what it's all about right now."

Davis noted that the teams in the final four will have aggressive hitters and that her team will need to focus on defense and adjusting their blocks.

"A lot of times you've kind of got to adjust things while you play, and if we go in there tensed up it doesn't matter how much we scout or anything," Davis said. "It's just, they've got to stay loose and play and realize, 'Hey, we're in the final four,' and just be excited about it -- and they are."

The Wildcats are the only team in the final four that wasn't in last year's final four. In fact, none of the Leopold players had made it past the sectional round until this year.

"They're determined, and they've worked so hard they don't want to stop now," Davis said. "They want to keep pushing. And it's like I've said, 'You've got four more games. Three games in pool play and then either third or fourth or championship,' and they continue to say 'OK, one game at a time.'"

Leopold (29-4-1) kicks off round-robin play at 10 a.m. today against Santa Fe (29-3-2).

The Chiefs' offensive attack is led by junior middle hitter Alexis Smith with 306 kills and sophomore middle hitter Kylie Limback with 264 kills.

Setters Lauren Wiggins and Brooke Barnett each have 323 assists.

The Wildcats face Osceola (25-5-3) at noon and defending state champion Winona (27-9) at 2 p.m.

Osceola junior outside hitter Brooke Wilson leads the Indians with 284 kills. Wilson and senior setter Kaitlyn Schrock lead Osceola with 52 and 55 aces, respectively.

Winona junior outside hitter Rachel Holthaus and senior middle hitter Nola McAfee return from last year's state championship team and lead the Wildcats offense.

Holthaus has 460 kills and 288 assists, and McAfee has 223 kills and 296 assists.

Defensively, Winona libero Erika Chitwood has 412 digs, followed by Abigail Hough with 320 digs. Hough also leads the Wildcats with 57 aces.

Leopold junior Caitlin Petty leads the Wildcats with 309 kills. She also has 301 assists, 29 aces and 116 digs.

Senior Denai Arnzen has 141 kills and 288 digs, Junior Bailee Cope has 189 kills and 33 aces, and Ashlyn Bucher has 144 kills.

Senior setter Sydney Eeftink has 409 assists and 112 digs.

The Class 1 third-place game is at 10:30 a.m. Saturday and the championship game is at 4:30 p.m. Leopold's 1993 state championship team will be recognized for the 20th anniversary of the team's first-place state finish around 4 p.m.

Leopold senior Sydney Eeftink and junior Caitlin Petty said that the thought of winning a state title on the 20th anniversary of Leopold's first state title has been discussed.

The 1993 team was recognized at a Leopold volleyball game earlier in the season and the idea of making it to the state tournament that the champions would be recognized at was brought up.

"... And then we kind of looked forward to that and now that we're here we're like, 'Might as well just make another anniversary for it,'" Eeftink said.

"It'd be crazy," Arnzen said. "I hope we do. That'd be a big deal because we could come back in 20 years and be like, 'Hey, we did this!'"