Lawrence takes 6th at tourney

Bonnie Toplikar spikes the ball over a Bishop Carroll player in the first match of the Joan Wells Tournament hosted by Lawrence High. The Lions lost their first match Saturday at Lawrence High School.

Rarely would Lawrence High volleyball coach Jo Huntsinger be pleased if her team won just one match out of five at a tournament, but the annual Wells Invitational is the exception to the rule.

The Lions were swept by Wichita Carroll, Miege and Shawnee Heights — the top three Class 5A teams at state last year — in pool play Saturday at LHS. The Lions beat Blue Valley Northwest, 25-20, 25-22, in the consolation semifinals before falling again to Carroll, 25-22, 25-20, in the consolation final.

Miege knocked off Park Hill South, 25-23, 25-17, in the championship game while Heights edged Maize for third place.

“I don’t think anybody left here today without losing a match,” Huntsinger said, “and one of the top 5A (Carroll) teams didn’t even make it out of their pool. Most of us come in expecting to lose a match or two. That just says a lot about the competition that we had here.”

The Lions took their licks, too, but showed steady improvement throughout the day. They put one good game and one bad game together during each match of pool play, but the better games were never enough to record a win.

Lawrence finally clicked against Shawnee Heights. Six kills by Bonnie Toplikar and three from Bobi Riley and Abby Schwartz fueled the Lions’ early push in Game One against the T-Birds, but Heights pulled away with a 5-0 run.

“The whole team that played against them doesn’t really like Shawnee Heights, so we wanted to kill them in that match,” setter Carolyn Raynes said. “That was the first thing on our minds. It didn’t quite happen, but we had a lot more fire.”

It was hard for Huntsinger to be disappointed after seeing so much progress.

“I asked the girls if they saw any team out here they didn’t think they could beat, and they said no,” Huntsinger said. “We just need to remain intense and focused during and entire match and finish. We played with all of these teams at different times and we were very inconsistent. We just need to put it together.”