Manhattan High volleyball honored its seniors with a pair of straight-set sweeps against Hays and Junction City on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an old custodial broom that we have taken, and now every time we sweep a team, they get to put tape on it and add to it, and it’s all bedazzled,\u201d head coach Nicole Jones said. \u201cSo that broom has become a goal to add to it. They know we have to sweep teams, and that’s exactly what they did. Super excited. They played great.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Indians (21-7) celebrated eight seniors: Evie Ruliffson, Avery Leicht, Bailey Busch, Jelena Depusoir, Keeli Tepe, Sophia Peabody, Ansley Becket and Madison Stanard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are the best leaders and best examples of what a young woman athlete should be for Manhattan High School,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThey embody everything I could want them to be. It’s a huge loss. I literally don’t know what it will look like when they’re not with me. I will grieve pretty hard after the season’s over, but they’re just incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Busch, a four-year varsity player for the Indians, will continue her volleyball career at Weber State in Ogden, Utah. She is the daughter of Liz Wegner-Busch, the first two-time All-American in Kansas State volleyball history.<\/p>\n
Busch has been part of numerous senior nights for volleyball and basketball as a teammate, but Thursday’s carried more meaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s very nostalgic. It’s crazy. It feels like just yesterday I was a freshman. I’ve been through so many, and now I am a senior, and it’s super crazy to be here,\u201d Busch said. \u201cI’m so grateful that we get to play with each other and compete. I truly would not want to be playing with another group of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming off a five-match sweep of the Centennial League tournament last week, the Indians extended their winning streak to seven matches, defeating Hays 25-12, 25-17 and Junction City 25-11, 25-11.<\/p>\n
Manhattan opened the evening against Hays. The Indians from two hours to the west held their own in the early stages of each set, but Manhattan closed both sets strongly to secure the sweep.<\/p>\n
Against rival Junction City, the Indians set aside the pregame emotions and cruised to a 25-11 first-set win. In the second, Manhattan used a run of nine straight points midway through the set to finish the night with another 25-11 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don’t have light days in the gym,\u201d Ruliffson said. \u201cNo matter who our competition is, we’re always working on things we can get better at, things that we can throw off other teams with. It’s just hard work in the gym every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Indians will stay home this weekend to host the Manhattan Invitational on Saturday. Manhattan will then travel to Maize South next Thursday, looking to secure a top-four seed in the Class 6A West and host sub-state.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re watching the standings and seeing where we fall, and we’re pretty happy where we’re at right now,\u201d Jones said. \u201cBut let’s keep securing it. It’s important for the postseason. This is exactly where we want to be. We’re excited to see what happens in a week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manhattan High volleyball honored its seniors with a pair of straight-set sweeps against Hays and Junction City on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[136352,43410,2149,75,84,83,9,24,63,1339],"class_list":["post-369246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-broom","tag-junction-city","tag-kansas","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-volleyball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}