By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
After a third place finish last year, the Bishop LeBlond volleyball team is back in Cape Girardeau for another final four appearance.
Seeking the first championship in school history, Bishop LeBlond is in the final four for a fifth time.
Head Coach Kim Huss says what's exciting about this group making it back to Cape Girardeau is that it's a whole new group of players
"Because we graduated seven seniors last year, and so on our roster only two people had experience playing significant time on varsity, and so this year this is a whole new group of kids minus two players," Huss tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "And so that's what's exciting."
Huss says the team isn't doing anything to dramatically different to prepare for such a big stage, and says in the program simply considers a business trip
"That these matches are just like going on a business trip, where you have a certain plan, you're going to go take care of business, and everything else will take care of itself," Huss explains. "So, we're not doing anything dramatically different this week than we've done in all the weeks leading up to this, obviously there's some special things that come along with qualifying for the final four and some activities and things, but really we want to go down and help these girls makes some great memories."
Bishop LeBlond is back in the final four one year after finishing third and graduating seven seniors, with only two players from that team back on this year’s squad.
One of those is junior Rilyn Conard, who says it's always the mission to make it back to the final four
"We're now the fifth team in LeBlond school history to get there, so I think our goal this year is to really get some work done down there and come back with a first-place finish," Conard says.
The team is young, with two freshmen playing a key role, but Conard says even though they're young, they are prepared
"We're a young team of course and we start two freshmen, but these girls have really hard, and they fit in just with the rest of us," Conard points out. "So, they've worked really hard, and they are deserving of this."
Bishop LeBlond will play St. Vincent this evening at 6pm. They will play either Hermann, the team that knocked them to the third-place game last year, or currently undefeated Fair Grove on Saturday.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.