St. Vincent's state championship hopes in volleyball end in semifinals

The St. Vincent Indians girls volleyball team fell to the Bishop LeBlond Eagles 3-0 in the Class 2 state semifinals at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau. The Indians will have one more chance to win their final game of the year in the third-place game.

The first set was close before the Indians grabbed a 20-16 lead and forced Bishop LeBlond into a timeout. The Eagles battled back to tie the game at 21-all and St. Vincent used a timeout of their own. Bishop LeBlond pushed their lead to 24-22 before finally taking set one 25-23.

Set two was not good for the Indians as they went down 5-0 early and never managed to get anything going on either side of the net. Bishop LeBlond went up 2-0 and St. Vincent found itself in the same spot it was in during the quarterfinals.

Unfortunately for the Indians, set three was close but they could not overcome the deficit as the Eagles managed to squeeze out the 3-0 victory. St. Vincent head coach Darren Verseman said despite the loss he wants his team to go into Saturday with confidence and believes it can win.

“They honestly care about one another and are disappointed in themselves. We had trouble passing. We didn’t control the first contact very well at all, and our setters couldn’t make up for it. We kind of spiraled from there but they didn’t quit,” Verseman said. “We talked in the locker room, and everybody’s way down and way down and way down. I was like, ‘Girls, you know, it’s not what any of us wanted, but you got one more chance to win the last game of the year.’ That’s the beauty of the format, is two teams are going to win their last game of the year, two teams out of the entire state, and if we stay down we’ve got no chance to do that.”

St. Vincent gets its shot to win its last game of the year at 2 p.m. Saturday against either Hermann or Fair Grove in the Class 2 third-place game. Verseman said some things have to change for the Indians to win.

“Our first ball contact has to be better either, either passing serves or when they’re putting the ball in play. We just have to deliver the ball a lot more accurately to our center so she has three options,” Verseman said. “That’s the main thing. After that, I’ll take my chances and if we get beat, we get beat then. But I’d like to see us give ourselves a better chance to do that.”