Lady Panthers repeat in tough league championship
When the Great Bend Lady Panthers won the 2023 Western Athletic Conference volleyball championship, it broke a two-decades long drought for the school’s program.
Six seniors graduated from that squad so when head coach Shelly Duvall began mapping out the 2024 roster, she knew she had some big shoes to fill.
And that’s exactly what she, her coaching staff, and the players did during the recently completed regular season.
Posting a regular-season record of 33-2, the Lady Panthers swept all four matches in the Oct. 19 WAC round-robin championship in Garden City. They finished two wins ahead of Garden City, Hays and Dodge City, all of whom went 2-2 with the tiebreaker sets won divided by sets played determining the second, third and fourth-place finishes.
Duvall, completing her seventh season, knew the road would not be an easy one and despite the unblemished record in the four matches, the Panthers had to rally to defeat Garden City, losing its only set of the day in the opener against the Lady Buffaloes.
In winning the team’s second straight title, Duvall also earned Coach of the Year honors.
“It’s the most competitive group I’ve had in my seven years and this was the most competitive WAC championship,” Duvall said. “You really never knew who was going to win in any of the matches.”
After sweeping their first three matches of the tournament in straight sets, the Panthers had their first big challenge. Not only did they drop the first set to Garden City (19-25), but they lost sophomore setter Kya Behr to a leg injury.
Behr eventually did return in the match to lift the Panthers to win the final two sets, 25-21, 25-14 and claim the back-to-back title.
“We knew Garden City would be playing their best against us, so for us to win, Kya just wanted to go back in,” Duvall said of her star sophomore. “The girls worked so hard to rally and come back to get the win.”
Duvall said that it was a bittersweet victory after seeing her six seniors graduate the year before.
“You’re always sad to lose players who you’ve coached for all their high school years,” Duvall said. “We only had three returners and we have had an extremely young team. The main thing I wanted them to do was to work on the end goal.”
That end goal resulted in a 30-2 regular season record.
“If you’d told me that we would be 30-2 I don’t know if I’d believed you,” Duvall said. “With a new group you don’t know what you’re going to get, but this team has a little bit of extra grit. Every girl has bought in and the support for each other is just so good. They all have the same passion.”
In the volleyball world, momentum becomes an important component of matches and can change as fast as the Kansas weather or wind direction.
“You don’t have time to think,” Duvall said, “but if you do, you’re down two points and then all of a sudden you’re down five points. Things can be momentum killers. You just have to keep the momentum shifts on your side and keep errors at a minimal level. If you don’t you end up in a deep, dark place. You need to play the game in the light.”
Duvall described her squad as one with balance on both offenses and defense.
“The older girls we have run six rotations,” Duvall said. “The younger ones who have been important on the defensive side just spend a lot of time prepping in practice. So, I think we have a nice mix of offense and defense.”
Duvall said she and her staff spend many hours in the off-season developing the drills to enhance the skills of their players.
“You have to be creative when you’re working in practice to compete against some top-level teams,” Duvall said. “For example, we use a snow shovel for blocking drills. In some cases, I think you can over-prepare for a team, and it might just help to play kind of blind.”
During the regular season, the Panthers competed only once against Hays and Garden City and twice each against Dodge City and Liberal.
“I think it opens up your schedule to play other good teams that prepare you for the postseason,” Duvall said. “I think the best part of this team is that when we tell them things, they just do them. They don’t know anything different. There is full trust from the coaches down to the players.”
The all-WAC first team for 2024 had two Great Bend players — Behr and senior Cassie Ellegood. Hays also nabbed two of the six spots with senior Molly Martin and junior Annie Humphrey. The remaining two first-teamers included repeat Player of the Year Garden City senior Piper Harris and Dodge City’s Piper Mellinger, a junior.
On the second team, the Panthers were represented by senior Kara Feist (Sr.), Cait Pfaff (Sr.) and Jersey Bogner (So.) from Dodge City, Charly Vollertsen (Fr.) and Aleeya Cruz (Sr.) of Garden City, and Liberal junior Shamari Lewis.
Garden City’s Piper Harris repeats WAC honor
Her four years of playing high school volleyball hasn’t always been a bed of roses for Garden City senior outside hitter Piper Harris.
In her freshman and sophomore seasons, despite earning first-team, all-Western Athletic Conference honors, Harris and her Lady Buffalo teammates struggled and didn’t earn trips to the Class 6A state tournament.
In fact, when she was a 14-year-old freshman and thrown into the starting lineup, her team finished 14-22. How things have changed.
That had been a staple for the Lady Buffs for much of the decade of the 2010s when the program won 10 consecutive WAC crowns (2011-2020). During her freshman, sophomore and junior years, the Lady Buffs came up short at the WAC championship as Harris watched Hays, Liberal and Great Bend capture the team titles. In her senior season, Harris helped her squad to a runner-up finish to Great Bend.
The five WAC coaches, however, voted her the Player of the Year, repeating the honor she captured in 2023. The 5-10 outsider hitter displayed an array of shots in her final campaign and went over the 1,000-mark in both kills and digs.
“Truly shocked,” Harris said upon learning of the repeat honor. “It was an overwhelming sense of gratitude because I’ve got tremendous teammates and coaches. It’s all due to them.”
Harris, who helped her team to a pair of Class 6A state tournament appearances in her junior and senior seasons, leaves the Lady Buffs’ program as one of the most honored players in history.
She is the team’s all-time leader in digs with 1,157, surpassing Kelbi Richter and ranks No. 2 in kills with 1,265, sitting only behind former all-stater Reagan Karlin’s 1,349. She has the second best season digs with 401 and third best in kills with 348.
“I think (winning the award) is a unique situation,” said Harris, referring to the fact she and her teammates were runners-up this year to Great Bend in the WAC round-robin championship. “I think you have to show true spirit on the court, you have to be a great teammate and you have to have the passion for the game.”
In her final year after being named first-team all-WAC each of her four seasons, Harris will have a couple of special memories — getting her 1,000th kill and also going over the thousand mark in digs.
“I really feel like my go-getter attitude on the back row was a big reason the digs were much better,” Harris said. “Sometimes when you’re the outside hitter, it’s hard to get the digs. But you’ve gotta have the pass to get the kills.”
Harris said she didn’t shy away from taking on the responsibility of being a team leader.
“Our team graduated nine seniors when I was a freshman,” she said. “It just kind of fell to me and I knew I was going to take on a big role. I believe the journey is not about ‘Wins’, but more about friendship and how much we’ve grown.”
Harris perhaps saved her most important moment in this year’s sub-state championship match on the team’s home floor against their biggest rival, Dodge City.
Down at one point 16-10 and then again at 21-18, Harris came up big in the final run, scoring all three points when the match was tied and secured the winning point on a solo block to send her team back to the state tournament.
“It’s surreal to think about it (solo block),” Harris said. “To get the final point that way is just something I’ll always remember.”
Her coach throughout her career, Trista Bailey, said Harris has left a legacy for players in the future.
“She’s a special talent with a fiery spirit that you cannot teach and you cannot replace,” Bailey said of the 5-10 Harris. “One of my favorite things about Piper is her passion for winning. We can teach volleyball all day, but you can’t teach heart. With Piper, that’s been the fire that makes going to practice every day so fulfilling.”
Aside from the leadership skills and heart for the game, Bailey said Harris has improved each of her four seasons of high school volleyball.
“Statistically, she’s been better each year,” Bailey said. “The fact she’s high on the list in both kills and digs shows just how much she loves the game, and how much she loves to work and how much she loves to win.”
Bailey said she had never had another player that was given so much responsibility at such a young age in the program.
“No other freshman that I’ve ever coached has been given that responsibility,” Bailey said. “She’s been the face of our program for the last four years and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to put the Buffalo on her back and carry us to this point.”
And what does her future in the sport look like?
“I can’t believe I’m done,” Harris said a day after her team had played its final match in the state s tournament in Salina. “Volleyball has always been my mom’s dream, but we talked a lot and she just wants me to be happy and I’ve decided not to play in college.”
Harris said she will attend Kansas State University and pursue potential degrees in either Communication Science and Disorders or dental hygiene. Her father, grandfather and an uncle are all dentists.
While she is hanging up her volleyball uniform, in the spring of 2025, she will don the Lady Buffalo softball uniform for one last go of high school sports.
“Softball has always been the sport on the back burner,” Harris said. “I enjoy it, but volleyball has always been the first sport for me.”
Western Athletic Conference
All-Conference Volleyball
| PLAYER | SCHOOL | YEAR |
|---|---|---|
| First Team | ||
| Kya Behr | Great Bend | SO |
| Piper Harris | Garden City | SR |
| Piper Mellinger | Dodge City | JR |
| Molly Martin | Hays | SR |
| Cassie Ellegood | Great Bend | SR |
| Annie Humphrey | Hays | JR |
| Second Team | ||
| Kara Feist | Great Bend | SR |
| Cait Pfaff | Dodge City | SR |
| Charly Vollertsen | Garden City | FR |
| Shamari Lewis | Liberal | JR |
| Aleeya Cruz | Garden City | SR |
| Jersey Bogner | Dodge City | SO |
Coach of the Year: Shelly Duvall, Great Bend
