Washburn Rural volleyball rises to occasion against brutally tough early schedule

It's never been in Kevin Bordewick's nature to have his teams – be it volleyball or basketball – ease into their seasons with a schedule front-loaded with lesser competition.

Nahh, year-in, year-out, Bordewick puts together as challenging of a schedule as he can for his Washburn Rural teams, knowing in the long run it will pay dividends in the Junior Blues' pursuit for state championships.
 

But even he admitted that when he looked at the schedule he's put together to start the 2021 season, the thought crept in of "Have I gone too far?"

Washburn Rural opened the season with Missouri powerhouse Liberty North – last year's undefeated Class 5 state champion – at the Metro Slam at St. James Academy High School on Aug. 28. The next outing including a clash with perennial Class 5A powerhouse St. James Academy.

Last week, it was a match with defending Class 4A state champion Bishop Miege and traditional 6A power Gardner-Edgerton.

"I told my assistant, 'You know, we could have a losing record for the first two or three weeks of the season,'" Bordewick said of a daunting early-season slate. "And that hasn't happened for a long time."

And it still hasn't. Not only did Rural accept the challenge of facing such a daunting slate, the Junior Blues rose to meet it. After a sweep of Manhattan and Highland Park on Tuesday night, Rural not only doesn't have a losing record, it's sitting 7-0.
Rural opened the season with an epic 25-21, 23-25, 28-26 victory over Liberty North, took another three-set win over St. James (25-23, 17-25, 25-21) and swept both Gardner (25-6, 15-16) and Miege (25-19, 25-14) to build an early resume nobody can match.

"We got Liberty North, and I was like, 'Well, that's all right,'" Bordewick said. "Then we got St. James and didn't really play that well and still came out with a W. We knew Miege would be good and came out of that one OK.

"So we're looking at it like, 'Gosh darn, that's a pretty good start.' And I know we still have a pretty high ceiling. We can pass better, play better defense. But we're thrilled with it so far."

With all but one player returning off last year's 35-6 third-place state team, Bordewick knew his team had the firepower to handle its early schedule. Junior Brooklyn DeLeye is one of the top players in the state, and nation, and already has committed to defending NCAA champion Kentucky.

Senior Katelyn Brogan, juniors Taylor Russell and Katie Borough and sophomores Zoey Canfield and Jada Ingram all earned postseason honors of some kind last year.

DeLeye delivered 17 kills against Liberty North and 18 against St. James to lead the Junior Blues in those three-set wins.

Rural jumped into Centennial League play on Tuesday and in addition to its league competition will step back out for matchups with Blue Valley Northwest on Thursday as well as defending state champion Blue Valley West on Sept. 16 and last year's 6A runner-up Olathe Northwest on Oct. 5.

Like Rural, Blue Valley West and Olathe Northwest return the large bulk of last year's state-tournament teams.

"When we do lose, we like to learn a lot from that," Bordewick said. "Now, we don't like to lose and so we're looking at film to say we have to get better here and here. We've still got a tough schedule coming up, some big names with all their players back. It's going to be tough.

"We beefed up our schedule on purpose. We've always had a decently tough schedule, but we went a little farther this year. But our girls want it too. They want to be tested to see where we're at. Give the girls credit for wanting that."

Volleyball has plenty of company at Rural in regards to early-season success.