The St. Mary’s-Colgan volleyball team lost one match en route to winning the Cherryvale Invitational on Saturday.
The Panthers fell to Cherryvale 2-1 (25-15, 23-25, 24-26) in pool play but rebounded to knock off league foe Frontenac 2-1 (25-17, 19-25, 25-18) in pool play.
Colgan, in tournament play, knocked off West Elk 2-0 (25-21, 25-18) in the first tournament-play game behind five kills and 10 blocks from senior Lisa Elmer and five blocks from Katie Hayes.
In the finals, the Panthers defeated Independence of the Southeast Kansas League, 2-0 (25-21, 25-14) as Elmer had 14 kills and nine blocks.
Hayes added five blocks and four kills and Breezie Trytek also had four kills in the win.
Earlier in pool play, the Panthers defeated Neodesha 2-0 (25-17, 25-12), and Altoona-Midway.
The Panther varsity squad will be off until traveling to Southeast with a league triangular with the Lancers and Northeast on Oct. 7.
PCMS 7A finishes second
IOLA — The Pittsburg Community Middle School seventh-grade volleyball team rallied for a second-place finish at the Iola Invitational on Saturday.
The Dragons knocked off Columbus 2-1 (21-13, 15-21, 15-11) in their first game as Mercedes Vogel led PCMS with seven service points and five aces and Mattson Steele picked up six service points along with three aces.
Pittsburg fell 2-0 (15-21, 17-21) in their second game of the tournament against Uniontown.
Andrea Gaddy had five service points and two aces for the Dragons.
The Dragons rebounded and knocked off Iola 1 2-0 (21-13, 21-13) as Bethanne Elliott racked up 16 service points and five aces to lead Pittsburg.
In the second-place match against Marmaton Valley, the Dragons fell in the first game but rebounded to take the match 2-1 (19-21, 21-12, 15-13).
Elliott again led the Dragons with nine service points and Vogel had seven.
PCMS will host Coffeyville at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.
PHS JV volleyball takes third
INDEPENDENCE — The Pittsburg junior varsity volleyball team went 3-0 in their pool at the Independence Invitational on Saturday but lost to Fort Scott 2-0 (13-25, 13-25) in the first round of tournament play and wound up taking third overall.
In pool play, the Dragons beat Iola, Parsons and Neodesha.
Pittsburg knocked off Columbus — the other pool winner — 2-0 (25-21, 25-21) behind nine kills from Ashley Willis and Chloe Harris’ five kills and four aces.
Against Fort Scott, Morgan Rhue picked up four kills and three aces.
PHS will travel to Coffeyville to take on the Golden Tornado and Chanute at 5 p.m. Thursday.
Polshak fourth at KU
LAWRENCE — Girard’s Tyler Polshak finished fourth to lead the Girard boy’s cross country team to a 10th-place finish in the Blue race of the KU Invitational at Lawrence on Saturday.
Polshak finished with a time of 17 minutes, 37 seconds.
On the girl’s side, Michaela Bauer was sixth in 16:47 and Taylor Batson finished 48th in 18:30 as the Trojans placed ninth overall as a team in their division.
Jordan Garbin placed 71st in 19 minutes while Whitney Southard was 83rd in 19:18 and Jeanine Kunshek was 91st with a time of 19:38. Kaylae White crossed with a time of 19:53 to place 104th and Lindsay Stolte was 105th, also in 19:53.
“Our 1-3 runners did great but our 4 and 5 kind of hurt us,” said Girard head coach Matt Logue.
On the boy’s side, Peter O’Nelio was 31st with a time of 18:56 and Andrew Augustine finished 48th in 19:24.
Preston Samuels finished with a time of 20:42 to place 96th and Gavin Snyder was 103rd in 20:53. Cody Bradshaw was 104th in 20:54.
“That is a pretty solid performance,” Logue said. “Especially for the girls because they ran a solid race.”
Girard will compete in the Pittsburg Invitational at Four Oaks Golf Course on Thursday.
Girard loses in semifinals
CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — After finishing 3-3 in pool play at the Carl Junction (Mo.) Invitational on Saturday, the Girard Trojan volleyball team knocked off Joplin (Mo.) 2-1 (25-18, 22-25, 25-14) to get into the semifinals.
There, they ran into a tough Carthage (Mo.) squad that knocked off the Trojans 2-1 (25-17, 20-25, 10-25).
“There were some stretches where we were a little rough,” said Girard head coach Dale Coomes. “Carthage was a big, physical team and I was glad to get them to three games but the last game was a little lop-sided.”
Against Carthage, Carly Twarog had nine kills and Andi Umbarger, Haley Brown and Morgan Boore added five kills each.
In the first tournament game against Joplin, Twarog had 15 kills to lead the Trojans and Umbarger added another seven kills.
Libero Ariel Vinze picked up three aces in the win.
“We did okay,” Coomes said. “I think we might have been the smallest school there and we played some pretty good ball.”
The Trojans will compete next in the Wichita Heights Invitational next Saturday morning.
CHERRYVALE —
