The Manhattan High girls Varsity volleyball team brought the heat to an already hot gym as they went undefeated in their meet against Washburn Rural, Hayden and Lawrence.

“We definitely gave it our all,” senior hitter Mackenzie Pease said. “[The Hayden gym] is always hot, we also had injuries and illnesses, but we were able to finish 3-0 which was major since Hayden and Washburn counted for league. We started out against Washburn which was one of the most intense games I’ve been apart of. We went to three sets for every game which was hard but we were able to finish which was huge for momentum.”

The adversity of the extreme conditions of the gym has been seen before this season. Earlier in their season, they played in the same gym against Shawnee Heights, Hayden, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Bishop Carroll, Olathe North and Olathe East. The team made major improvement since then as they went 3-3 that day, compared to going 3-0 in their most recent match.

“We are all ready [for the next competition],” Pease said. “We are sitting in first for league right now so Junction City is the last team we need to play. Manhattan Volleyball has never won league since the Centennial started so it is a major goal we have had for the season.”

While the team is ready to play Junction City, they have no intentions of stopping there.

“Sub-state is always challenging.” Pease said. “We will most likely play Washburn or Lawrence free state and both those teams are good. It’s never easy. Although we do have a very good shot at winning sub-state. As long as we continue to perform the way we have been the past couple weeks which I expect us to. We have found our groove and I expect us to keep doing it.”

Despite having a very good shot at winning sub-state, there are still some things that the team hopes to improve upon before that event rolls around. The team plans to work on serve receive because it is such an important part of volleyball, they spend a large portion of practice doing serve receive drills. They also plan to spend some time doing six on six drills which help create game like situations that they are likely to see in future competitions.

Their next meet is on Tuesday against Wamego and Junction City in Wamego.