NSSC volleyball club posts best national finish

The North Stoddard Scott County volleyball club posted its best national finish to date last week.

Several area athletes competed in the 2015 USAV Girls Junior National Volleyball Championships held this past week in New Orleans, Louisiana, placing 11th among 48 teams.

The NSSC 181 team is comprised of 10 girls from throughout Southeast Missouri. The traveling team, which practiced twice a week at the Osage Center, has spent the past six months competing in the prestigious Power League out of St. Louis, where they finished third in the league standings, and playing in several tournaments.

The national tournament capped a season that head coach Carl Ritter Jr. said exceeded expectations.

"I really felt like we had an opportunity to get (to the national tournament)," said Ritter, who noted that nine of the 10 players on his roster have secured scholarships to play collegiate volleyball this fall. "I thought we had the potential to earn a bid."

The squad faced teams from throughout the country, from cities like Tampa, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

"Most of these teams in the national tournament are from large cities," said Ritter, whose 2010 team also reached the national championships in Reno, Nevada, but failed to advance beyond pool play. "And we're pulling kids from communities some that are less than 1,000 (population), and we're competing against teams from metro areas. That's an accomplishment in itself.

The tournament field was split into eight pools of six teams each for the first two days. NSSC 181 placed third it its pool with a record of 3-2, which earned it a third seed for the second round.

The team eventually finished 6-4 in match play, winning 15 sets while dropping 11.

One highlight was defeating previously unbeaten Synergy 18 Rox Orange 25-15, 12-25, 15-8 on Wednesday.

"It was pretty cool," said Abigail Bergman, a libero who is from Perryville but graduated from Saxony Lutheran this past spring. "We got to play against a bunch of different teams from all over the country. We've never seen competition like that."

Other area players on the team included Caitlin Petty and Bailee Cope, both of Leopold, and Alex Spears of Perryville. Other team members were Jessica Lindsay and Shyann Jines of Dexter; Allie Holmes of Clearwater (Piedmont); Jacky Lockert of Kennett; and Kris Williams of Arcadia Valley.