By CAYDEN SANDERS
Tiger Media Network
The Fort Hays State volleyball team (16-12, 5-11) clinched the No. 8 seed in the MIAA Tournament after a senior night victory last week. The Tigers will take on the No. 3 team in the nation and top-seeded Nebraska-Kearney (26-3, 13-3) in the quarterfinals of the MIAA Tournament this afternoon.
“We’ve played against them close in sets over the course of two years, that vision of who Kearney was prior, the girls kind of had them on a pedestal, and I think they no longer view them that way,” FHSU Head Coach Jessica Wood-Atkins said. “They look at them as another team that has a weakness, just like all of them, even the best teams have a weakness. So you got to figure out what it is, and you got to go after it as quickly as you possibly can, while maintaining your own strength.”
In the two prior matchups, the Tigers fell in six straight sets. But in the last match-up up the Tigers were able to come within three points in the first two sets.
For the Tigers to get into the MIAA Tournament, they had to win in Gross Memorial Coliseum against Northwest Missouri State. Fort Hays dropped the first set 25-14, before taking the next three sets.
“I think we were going in confident, but to watch them do it together, and just to see the way that the team pulled and rallied, especially the first set not being our best set,” Wood-Atkins said of their senior-night victory. “I was really excited and really proud of them, and I think the blend of that is kind of hard to describe. I think that the hype and the level of just excitement surrounding it was indescribable.”
Senior Gracie Rains led FHSU against NWMSU with 14 kills and has stuck it out with her fellow seniors – making back-to-back MIAA Tournaments.
My class came in freshman year with nine of us; there’s four of us now, so it’s special, like just us four sticking it out all four years is special,” Rains said.
Wood-Atkins emphasized the importance of this senior class to the program.
“This class is special in a lot of ways, I think that they are really the group that has really been committed from start to finish about taking this team to that next level. You see in the MIAA, it is very, very hard, but they got it, and they got it from the start,” Wood-Atkins said. “They have a different level of competitiveness and fire. I think that what that brings to our team, on a level of accountability and just drive really goes a long way for us.”
This MIAA Tournament appearance will be the second back-to-back appearance since joining the conference in 2006. This is the sixth overall trip for the program in 19 seasons.
“It’s always been our goal, in my four years of being here, it’s always been a goal to make the MIAA so it definitely feels good that we’re back in it again this year,” Rains said. “We’re all very, very confident in our ability to beat Kearney, so hopefully it’s not a repeat.”
Rains also hit a personal milestone in the Tigers’ penultimate game against Missouri Western, earning 1000 career kills.
“It was my goal this season to hit 1000 kills,” Rains said. “It was rewarding, I feel like out of my four years I really wanted to reach that, especially this year. So meeting my goal felt like I just felt like I was completed.”
The Tigers compete at 5 p.m. this evening in St. Joseph, Missouri, against Nebraska Kearney in the MIAA Tournament first round.
“Just fine-tuning, like the small things, we always go into each game with a game plan, and things that you know will work against Kearney,” Rains said.