Seniors highlight the 2020 Wichita Eagle All-Metro high school volleyball team
.JPG "Bishop Carroll’s Riley Daugherty (second right) and Ella Larkin (third right) were chosen to the Class 5A All-Tournament volleyball team in 2018.")
Seven of the best seniors from the area highlight The Eagle’s 17th annual All-Metro volleyball team, as Bishop Carroll senior and future LSU setter Ella Larkin was named the area’s Player of the Year.
The All-Metro team consists of the top seven volleyball players and the top coach from Sedgwick, Butler and Harvey counties, based on statistics and area coach’s feedback.
Here is a look at the full 2020 Wichita Eagle All-Metro volleyball team:
Ella Larkin, Bishop Carroll senior
Vitals: 5-foot-10 setter and outside hitter for a Carroll team that finished 28-4 and took third place at the Class 5A state tournament.
Coach Tammy Long on Larkin: “Ella is just an all-around great player. Not only is she one of the best setters in the state, she’s one of the best hitters in the state and one of the best defensive players in the state. She’s very talented in all different areas and she can do just about everything extremely well.”
Opposing coach on Larkin: “Her ball control and her court awareness is what made her stand out. When you watch her play, she makes it look too easy. I’ve watched her set a ball from the (out of bounds) line and most high school kids cannot do that. She’s not an overly tall player, but that’s where her smarts come into play. She has a really high volleyball IQ and that’s what makes her stand out.”
Stats: 5.2 assists, 2.9 digs and 2.9 kills per set with a .381 hitting percentage.
Accolades: 1st team all-state in Class 5A; 1st team all-City League.
College: LSU (signed)
Laurel Jones, Maize South senior
Vitals: 6-foot-1 setter and outside hitter for a Maize South team that finished with 29 wins and a fourth-place finish at the Class 5A state tournament, its best finish in school history.
Coach Teri Larson on Jones: “I’ll never forget when Laurel was a freshman because she never played like a freshman. She fit in on varsity right away and other kids accepted her right away. She’s been a leader for us since day one and she’s just a natural on the court. She’s tall and has incredible hands, which allow her to set the ball anywhere on the court.”
Opposing coach on Jones: “She is such a smart setter. She had such a young team around her, so the fact they did so well this year is a testament to her ability to put the ball in the right place every time. They may have been inexperienced around her, but she gave them the best opportunity they could have with every swing and she put them in the right places. They wouldn’t have been anywhere close to where they ended up without a skilled setter like her.”
Stats: 5.6 assists, 0.7 blocks and 2.6 kills per set with a .295 hitting percentage.
Accolades: 2nd team all-state in Class 5A; Player of the Year in AV-CTL Div. I.
College: Undecided
Austin Broadie, Trinity Academy senior
Vitals: 6-foot-1 outside hitter for a Trinity team that finished 24-7 and reached a Class 3A sub-state championship match..
Coach Marie Goscha on Broadie: “The first thing that comes to everyone’s mind when they see Austin is they’re wow’ed by the way she hits. After coaching her for four years, I’m more amazed by how she wants to pass and set the ball just as well as she hits. I don’t think people realize how much effort she’s put into every position of the game, not just her hitting. Obviously she’s great at that, but she’s worked really hard on becoming a complete player and I really appreciate that about her.”
Opposing coach on Broadie: “She’s a big, physical player and she hits high, which is a problem for a lot of teams. For us specifically, if my setter was in the front row it would be a mismatch problem. She has developed her game and she has a lot of shots, not just down the line or cross the court. She can do it all and if she has a good approach, she’ll crush it. She’ll tool you. She’ll get a kill in the gap of the block. She’s got a lot of different tools to work with and that’s what happens when you’re a great player like her.”
Stats: 5.5 kills and 4.2 digs per set with a .314 hitting percentage
Accolades: 1st team all-state in Class 3A; First team all-Central Plains League
College: Washburn (signed)
Asha Regier, Newton senior
Vitals: 5-foot-9 outside hitter for a Newton team that won 23 games and reached the Class 5A quarterfinals.
Coach Jamie Dibbens on Regier: “When she started coming to our camps in the fifth grade, I knew right then that this girl is going to be good. She just has this combination of being very powerful, but also very smooth. She has two older sisters that both played in college. One is a powerful player that always wants to put it down and the other has a lot more finesse to her game and I’ve always thought Asha is a combination of both of them.”
Opposing coach on Regier: “The first thing that stood out to me was just her athleticism. She could really jump so well in the air and then she’s got incredible power. Some girls can really jump, but don’t have the arm swing. But she’s got both. When we played her, our whole goal was to try to minimize her. We put in an entire defense just for her. That’s a credit to how great of a player she was.”
Stats: 5.9 kills and 4.1 digs per sit with a .345 hitting percentage
Accolades: 1st team all-state in Class 5A; First team all-AV-CTL Div. I
College: Nebraska Kearney (signed)
Katelyn Fairchild, Andale senior
Vitals: 5-foot-9 outside hitter for an Andale team that finished 37-4 and reached the Class 4A state championship match for the second consecutive season.
Coach Kaylie Bergkamp on Fairchild: “She’s carried a big load for us the last three years and she surpassed the 1,000-kill mark this season, so that’s a big deal for a high school attacker. What impresses me the most about her is her desire to do absolutely everything possible to help her team win. She’s a fantastic player, but she wants everyone around her to be a fantastic player too. She’s spent a ton of time in the weight room and that’s helped her with how hard she hits the ball and her pursuit when she goes after balls. I think she’s been overlooked as a volleyball player and it’s just been really impressive to watch her compete for us.”
Opposing coach on Fairchild: “What stood out to me when we played her was just how much of a competitor she was. She was willing to do whatever it took to help her team. She could put it down. She made some ridiculous digs against us. She can block at the net. She was definitely one of the best all-around players we saw this season.”
Stats: 3.6 kills and 3.5 digs per sit with a .298 hitting percentage
Accolades: 1st team all-state in Class 4A; Player of the Year in AV-CTL Div. IV
College: Texas A&M in track and field (signed)
Riley Daugherty, Bishop Carroll senior
Vitals: 5-foot-10 outside hitter for a Carroll team that finished 28-4 and took third place at the Class 5A state tournament.
Coach Tammy Long on Daugherty: “Riley is one of the most disciplined players that I’ve ever seen. She does everything with the correct form, no matter what kind of drill it is. She’s a great player and she doesn’t take anything for granted even though she has so much talent. It’s impressive that she’s as dominant at hitting as she is because she’s not even over 6 foot. She can do it all for us and she played all six rotations for us very, very well this season.”
Opposing coach on Daugherty: “This is probably true for most of Carroll’s team, but her knowledge of the game was so high. Of course she has Ella (Larkin) setting her, which is probably perfect every time, but her ability to hit it around the block made her really, really hard to stop. She destroyed us when we played them. As a defensive player, you’re hoping your blockers get a touch on the ball and she’s just swinging around them. That’s really hard to defend.”
Stats: 3.6 kills and 2.9 digs per set with a .319 hitting percentage
Accolades: 2nd team all-state in Class 5A; 1st team all-City League
College: Newman (signed)
Alyssa Hunter, Belle Plaine senior
Vitals: 5-foot-10 middle hitter for a Belle Plaine team that finished 35-6 and reached a Class 2A sub-state championship match.
Coach Karen Wiseman on Hunter: “Alyssa is such a good all-around player for us and her ability and knowledge of the game were just tremendous. She always knew what kind of shot to hit. She played all the way around for us and she was taking swings from the front and back row. There’s not very many teams that stopped her this year. She’s just incredibly smart and knows when to cut, when to chip. She doesn’t always have to crush it. She knows how to find the empty spots and corners.”
Opposing coach on Hunter: “We played them twice and I don’t really know her or her team very well, but she was the one player you couldn’t help but notice. You could just tell she was ready to kick your butt. No matter what position she played, she was just down in this competitive stance every second. You could tell this girl wants to win and the rest of that team fed off of her. When they got in a tight spot, they knew they could set her and she would put the ball down anywhere.”
Stats: 5.1 kills and 0.6 blocks per set with a .319 hitting percentage
Accolades: 1st team all-state in Class 2A; 1st team all-Central Plains League
College: Undecided
Kaylie Bergkamp, Andale coach
Bergkamp on Andale: “I remember this spring at our leadership meeting with the seniors, I told them, ‘People will underestimate you because they will look at everything we lost last year.’ We might have graduated five seniors, but we prepared the same way. We have varsity, JV and freshmen all practice together because that raises the expectation level in our gym. I think that really helped us this year because we had some players who were JV last season and they came so far and we ended up getting back to the state championship match just like last year’s group did. I’m so proud of this group.”
Opposing coach: “I love the way the Andale girls play the game. They always give 110% effort and they’re always so tough to play. Even though they lost a lot from last season, (Bergkamp) has that program rolling. You knew every time you played Andale you were going to have to fight and claw for every single point.”
Accolades: Andale finished 37-4 and reached the Class 4A state championship match for the second straight season. The Indians also won the AV-CTL Div. IV title and have not lost a league match in three years now.
The Wichita Eagle All-Metro second team
Torrance Lovesee, Bluestem senior outside hitter
Kylee Scheer, Cheney senior outside hitter
McKenzie Fairchild, Andale sophomore middle hitter
MayaMay Brown, Andover junior outside hitter
Brooklyn Wewe, Cheney junior setter
Ally Harris, Andover Central senior outside hitter
Mallorie Koehn, Maize senior outside hitter
Teri Larson, Maize South coach
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 11:31 AM.
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