Big Matches Set For the Volleyball Slam

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The annual St. James Volleyball Slam is here, and as always, big matches to kick off the season. My prediction game has been slacking, but we shall see how we do this round.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Blue Valley vs. Blue Valley Northwest</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Blue Valley returns leading attacker Molley McGovern for her sophomore season. [player_tooltip player_id='828491' first='Morgan' last='Sears'] and her 400+ kills from a year ago return for Northwest.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Prediction: Blue Valley Northwest</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Topeka Hayden vs. (11) St. Michael the Archangel</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This should be a really solid matchup. We talked about the weapons St. Michael has on their roster in our rankings release. Topeka Hayden was the 3rd place finisher from Kansas Class 4A and returns key players in setter Blakley Walter and front row star [player_tooltip player_id='513606' first='Hailey' last='Schmidtlein']. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Prediction: St. Michael</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>(6) Lee's Summit West vs. (5) Olathe West</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The top six match up with the battle of the West. Again, we recently discussed the key contributors. Both teams are strong on the pin and have quality setters. Stowell vs. Massengill should be fun to watch. It should be a very close battle based on rankings. So if I'm going to go off my rankings, I have to pick the higher team, right?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Prediction: Olathe West</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Blue Valley North vs. Washburn Rural</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Mustangs will welcome quite a few new faces in the lineup, but [player_tooltip player_id='445976' first='Reese' last='Maslowski'] is one who contributed at a high level last fall. Washburn Rural returns many familiar faces and has the experience factor in this match. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Prediction: Washburn Rural</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>St. Teresa's vs. Bishop Miege</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The annual battle of rivals. St. Teresa's was young a season ago, and many of those players are back with [player_tooltip player_id='800632' first='Eleanor' last='Reisch'] leading the way. Miege graduated a large portion of their scoring, but [player_tooltip player_id='478871' first='Maryn' last='Dean'] is still around to lead the offense from the setter position. This is an intriguing match and will come down to which young players step up under the bright lights of television.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Prediction: St. Teresa's</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>(3) Blue Valley West vs. (2) Blue Valley Southwest</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It starts to heat up with the remaining matches on the docket. Number two versus number three. This could turn out to be the match of the day. Heavy arms on both sides of the net. Southwest has the depth across its lineup. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Prediction: Blue Valley Southwest</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>(1) Mill Valley vs. (4) St. Thomas Aquinas</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>A matchup of the defending state champions in the biggest classes in Kansas. Expect high-quality setter play from both sides.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Prediction: Mill Valley</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>(9) Lansing vs. (7) St. James</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Another pretty good match where the teams match up evenly on paper. We shared yesterday that Lansing returns a lot of scoring from a year ago. This is the one time where we will lean towards the team ranked just a tad lower. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Prediction: Lansing</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->