A five-hour bus ride and overnight hotel stay on Friday led to splitting a win and a loss in the two Sub-State games for the Manhattan High Varsity volleyball team on Saturday afternoon.

The 13 players left after school Friday for an overnight in Dodge City before playing at Garden City High Saturday afternoon. 

Their first set of the tournament was against Wichita Southeast High — the eighth seed.

In the morning they practiced before their first set of games and just overall prepared for them. 

They went into the game pretty strong, quickly gaining a lead against their opponent and coming out of the first set winning 25-19. 

The second set was also over quickly with Wichita not at the top of their game; Manhattan took the second set 25-10. 

“We started off slow but we gained it back at the end of the first match and carried it to the second match,” junior Alyx Glessner said. 

Winning this first game moved them up to play their second game against Garden City, the first seed of the tournament. Garden City had won their first match against Haysville Campus High in two sets, knocking Haysville and Wichita of the bracket. Tired from their first game, MHS was defeated in two with the first set ending 25-13.

In the second set, Manhattan put their game faces on and played some of their hardest plays against Garden City for this second set, but it still wasn’t enough to win and Garden City came out on top with the final score at 25-21.

”We really showed out during that set and even though we lost it I think it was definitely one of the highlight games of our season,” junior Bonnie Hegarty said. “We gave it our all.”

This loss knocked Manhattan out of the bracket — as well as concluded their season — and declared Garden City the 6A Sub-State Champions. 

“We’ve had lots of ups and downs throughout the season but we definitely finished out strong and had lots of fun along the way too,” Hegarty said.