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Photo by Chris Wristen

Mill Valley senior libero Kristen Kennedy digs the ball during the Jaguars' victory over Shawnee Mission West.

Photo by Chris Wristen

Mill Valley junior Nicole Garretson goes up for a kill during the Jaguars' victory over Shawnee Mission West.

Despite losing the bulk of its varsity rotation from a year ago to graduation, the Mill Valley High School volleyball team looked awfully comfortable for the majority of its season-opening victory over Shawnee Mission West on Thursday.

Playing a best-of-five dual, the Jaguars needed just three games to dispose of the Vikings, 25-13, 25-16, 25-19, at MVHS.

It was exactly the type of start the youth-laden Jaguars - libero Kristen Kennedy and hitter Jana Boss are the lone seniors - had hoped for.

"We've been working really hard in practice and coach (Kimberly) Service has been pushing us really hard," Kennedy said. "I know we've had some rough practices and we got down some practices, but coach always pushed us and we wanted it because West was one of our rivals last year. They kept wanting to beat us and we kept beating them, so we came out with the rivalry (in mind) that we want to beat them like we did last year."

Although the final scores were lopsided, West wasn't an easy opponent. In fact, it raced to a 4-1 lead early in game one before Mill Valley settled in. The Jaguars led just 10-9 before rattling off five straight points on a kill by junior Allison Rolig, a combo block by junior Nicole Garretson and junior Whitney Hartman, an ace by junior Alaina Fairbanks and two kills by junior Meghan Scanlon. A few more kills by Rolig and Scanlon put the game out of reach.

Mill Valley built a 5-1 lead early in game two but clung to a 13-12 advantage midway through the game. Two Rolig kills, another by Scanlon and a few West miscues allowed the Jaguars to pull away.

The Vikings capitalized on a couple Jaguar errors and built a 16-14 lead late in game three. Just as the Jags started to look rattled, however, they regrouped. A West service error and a pair of aces by freshman Brittany Zarda put Mill Valley ahead 17-16. Later the Jaguars showed athleticism and poise while winning back-to-back long volleys where players kept balls alive out of bounds. A combo block by Hartman and Garretson and three kills by Hartman closed out the game and the match.

Service said she was pleased with her team, especially when it improvised a bit on the long volleys.

"We definitely focus in practice a lot on never giving up on a play, never giving up on a ball and always being aggressive so we're putting the other team on defense as much as possible," she said. 'I feel like if we can serve-receive well and put the other team on defense then we have the best chance of winning that we're going to have."

The solid first outing seemed to validate Mill Valley's No. 5 preseason ranking in the Kansas Volleyball Association Class 5A poll. That ranking will be put to the test again soon, however. The Jaguars travel to Ottawa on Monday where they will take on, among other teams, St. James Academy. St. James was the Class 4A state runner-up in 2007. It returned its entire squad from last year's 45-1 campaign and currently is ranked No. 1 in the state.

That's exactly the type of competition Service wants her team to play considering the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in Class 5A have been in Mill Valley's substate the past few years in St. Thomas Aquinas and Bishop Miege.

"We purposely schedule a tough schedule," Service said. "We always have a tough substate with Aquinas and Miege in our substate so we don't play any weak teams. The road gets tougher from here on out, but we certainly want to try our hand at one of the best teams in the metro area - and that's St. James - and I think the girls are going to be very excited to play. They play with a lot of them in the offseason and they live close to a lot of them so there's certainly a rivalry that's developed there."

BUILDING FOR NOW AND THE FUTURE

Last year's Mill Valley volleyball team lost to eventual state champion Aquinas in the substate finals. That didn't sit too well with the Jaguars. Even though they lost numerous key components from the 2007 squad, they don't want 2008 to be a rebuilding year.

Seniors Kristen Kennedy and Jana Boss want to win now, and they want a successful 2008 to pave the way for their younger teammates to have an even better 2009.

"There's a lot of pride," Kennedy said. "Me and Jana want to be good leaders for the team. Next year there's seven seniors and we want to be good role models for them; we want to push our team to state. It's our last year and we want to go to state really bad."

The seven juniors are Alaina Fairbanks, Whitney Hartman, Morgan Oshinski, Allison Rolig, Emma Umbarger, Meghan Scanlon and Nicole Garretson. There are no sophomores on the varsity, and Brittany Zarda is the lone freshman.

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