ShawneeDispatch.com

De Soto — After spending most of the season playing Class 5A and 6A opponents, St. James Academy volleyball coach Nancy Dorsey wanted her team to get a glimpse of some fellow Class 4A competitors before substate.

What Dorsey discovered was that her team did just as good against them as any other opponent this year as the Thunder won the De Soto Spikefest on Saturday.

“Some of these teams are in our district,” Dorsey said. “You always need to play some teams in your division and we really have not done that this year. And our schedule’s been tough, so it’s always nice to have a chance to really run some plays and do some things and give everybody some playing time. Every coach is one injury away from a completely different lineup so we got a chance to work on some of that stuff today, so that was really good for us.”

The Thunder blitzed their pool play opponents, disposing of Basehor-Linwood (25-10, 25-10), Baldwin (25-5, 25-17), Eudora (25-9, 25-11) and Tonganoxie (25-13, 25-12) to advance to the final four.

St. James hammered Jefferson County North, 25-9, 25-15, and moved onto the finals to play Jefferson County West.

Jeff West was receiving votes for the Kansas Volleyball Association Class 4A poll after bringing a 21-2 record into the tournament, but No. 1 St. James had no trouble winning the match. The Thunder primarily relied on their serving to take game one, 25-12. Sophomore Morgan Voorhes carried most of the offensive load in game two as she pounded five kills. Fellow sophomore Hanna Forst added four kills in the final game, a 25-13 victory.

“All of the girls played pretty well and they beat teams like they should, with the exception of a few unforced errors here and there for us, so I’m proud of them for that,” Dorsey said.

St. James — the No. 7 ranked team nationally by ESPN and No. 9 by Prep Volleyball — improved to 35-1 with the victory.

The Thunder now will take more than a week off before closing out the regular season on Tuesday, Oct. 21, at Louisburg.