By Brant Daughtry, Great Bend Post Sports
Ellinwood Volleyball has become one of the premier programs in Kansas, and they proved their dominance once again on Saturday as they swept their way to another undefeated state title.
After sweeping pool play on Thursday, Ellinwood entered the semi-finals as the number 1 seed. They began Championship Saturday with a 2-0 sweep over TMP-Marion by final scores of 25-13 and 25-11 to advance to the championship match against 8-seed Rossville, who defeated the 2-seed Moundridge in three tight sets. Ellinwood had already sweet Rossville in pool play two days earlier.
Ellinwood took the match in two sets, completing their second-straight 47-0 season with scores of 25-9 and 25-14.
After the win, head coach Greg Maxwell said "There's so many reasons, and then so much of it comes down to just. They believe in each other and trust each other like none other and and even in anything I ask them to do they do it without questioning there's never complaining and they've they've embraced it whatever they need to do to get to this goal they will do it, without ever questioning it and that's the part for me that's so phenomenal and the part that with their teammates is just that trust i mean they just believe in each other that's such a high level.
"The balance on this team is unbelievable. And I've said all along, I don't know how you would defend us. To do a game plan against us would be so difficult because if you take one away, we have five others that can beat you and you take two away, we have four others. You know, you'd have to have such a balanced defense to stop our attack. And then the thing that probably is incredible about it is I don't even know if our attack just does so many things well but it really comes down to the mindset they have you know you can find that with all the skill that they're they're gonna be tough to beat at any time."
Senior Alyvia Bachman said of that win that it was all about perseverance.
"It was just, keep pushing and that's all we knew when new competition was going to be here and we knew what we had to do in practice to prepare and we came into this feeling no pressure and I think that really helped us just play free and play strong and play our game."