The Manhattan High girls Varsity volleyball team was able to go 3-3 on Saturday despite facing some adversity that has not been seen so far this season. The team was playing in an unairconditioned gym, and toward the end of the tournament had to play multiple matches back to back. Although the conditions affected the team later on in the tournament, they started out unphased.

“Our first two games were against Hayden and Shawnee Heights,” setter Kenzie Smith said. “We played the 8 a.m. game against Hayden and we beat them in two sets, which is good  because we always had a rivalry with them. Then we beat Shawnee in three sets, which was a really good win because they beat us in the first three games of the season so it was good to get a redemption game against them.”

The team won the first match of the day in two sets, 25-16 and 25-16 against Hayden. Then they were able to win their second match of the day in three sets winning the first 25-18, losing the second 25-15 and then completing the match 25-19 against Shawnee heights.

“It was really stressful and we kinda gave up the next two games,” Smith said. “We should have beat them but were like literally so tired. we had to deal with a little adversity, and a few players had to have substitutions which is good because we have a huge bench, we had lot of girls who were ready to come in. Overall we played pretty good, it was just that we were pretty tired which kind of sucked and it was nice to see some of the teams from Kansas City, obviously we could have done better, but we played pretty good in my opinion.”

After winning the first two games against Hayden and Shawnee Heights, the team started to feel the fatigue and heat affecting them. They then lost their third match with Olathe North, losing the first set 25-23, winning the second set 26-24, and ending the match by losing the third set 25-21.

“A lot of volleyball we had a lot of good things going on,” head coach Lisa Kinderknecht said. “We continued to get better, we know that we can’t have a lot of unforced errors in a close match because that’s basically just giving them the point. We always want them to earn and we play a lot of good teams so they are going to earn points just like we are a good team. I was pleased with the girls for battling through we were the only team who had to play three in a row so they really battled through some adversity due to the heat and the fatigue. The conditions were pretty significant in playing 6 matches like that but we are looking forward to senior night which is Tuesday, it’s our last home match except for a home tournament.”

They ended up losing their fourth match of the day to Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in two sets, but then managed come out of the losing streak to beat Bishop Carroll in two sets. It would be very short lived as they lost their final match of the day to Olathe East in two sets. Their next match is senior night and it’s a home meet on Tuesday.