Bethel volleyball downs McPherson in five-set Senior Night thriller
Bethel volleyball downs McPherson in five-set Senior Night thriller
Loganbill, Carter lead the way with big plays in crucial moments.
A diving dig by Katey Wilhelm followed by an emphatic kill by Kylah Carter was the fifth-set turning point the Bethel (19-7, 7-2) volleyball team needed en route to a nerve-wracking victory over McPherson (13-11, 5-2) on Senior Night for the Threshers.
Shortly after, Bethel clinched its seventh conference win in Thresher Gym. And in a game that seesawed throughout — with the Bulldogs winning sets one and three and the Threshers taking sets two and four — Bethel head coach Adriana Leake’s group came together at just the right time on Saturday.
“That’s been the story of our season,” Leake said. “We always say, ‘we win those’ — ‘we win these’ — and that’s what we do whenever it's close or whenever it doesn't seem like we're gonna win. We always find a way … and we did that tonight.”
Mia Loganbill tallied a game-high 20 kills, including the one to put a bow on the team’s final home win in 2022. Harlie Hunton was second for Bethel with 11.
“I think it speaks to our resilience,” senior Loganbill from Hesston said. “In the past, if we were down, we automatically just assumed we were gonna lose. But [this season], we've come back from five, six, or even seven points before. We just have that in our memory … that we can win those games.”
Loganbill has answered the bell all season long for the Threshers — and this time she did it with some additional external pressure.
“I mean, she’s getting married tomorrow,” Leake said. “That on top of Senior Night … it just says so much about her heart for this team and how much of a competitor she is for her to be able to just lock in and focus on this one night. It’s huge.”
“I was freaking out before the game,” Loganbill said. “There's just a lot of emotions right now. But once the game started, all I was thinking about is this — and now I can celebrate it. It was a rush. My heart was beating like crazy.”
Both teams came out hot, trading blows until McPherson outscored Bethel 9-2 in the middle of the opening set to take a commanding 14-7 lead. The Threshers would respond with a quick 6-2 run of their own, but it wasn't enough to overcome the Bulldogs as they took set one, 25-20.
Bethel then flipped the script and wasted no time answering, jumping out to a 7-2 lead in the second set. When the two teams switched benches, the Threshers had knotted things up at a set apiece with a 25-13 throttling.
McPherson opened the third set with a 4-1 lead and clinged to a three-point cushion that Bethel just couldn't ever seem to fully puncture. The Threshers were able to draw even at 15 before the Bulldogs went on a quick 5-1 run and staved off a late 6-2 burst by Bethel to claim the 26-24 decision.
Immediately after, Bethel got a 5-1 jump on McPherson early in the fourth set, led wire-to-wire, and used an 11-4 run to eventually cap a dominant set, 25-16, that set the stage for a decisive fifth set. That’s when Kylah Carter and the Threshers (quite literally) put the hammer down on the Bulldogs, 15-12.
“[Coach Leake] tells us all the time: preparation breeds confidence in games,” junior Carter from Houston, Tex. said. “We work really hard and practice for moments like this — when it's tight. … Coming into this program [as a transfer], they told me we were the underdog and that last season they lost a lot of games. But this year, we're here to prove a point. We're not the team to overlook.”
Loganbill’s lone fellow senior, Arianna Gomez, has watched Bethel’s volleyball program grow from the ground up. She believes Saturday was just a microcosm of where this team under Leake’s direction is headed.
“We don't really like to talk about last season a lot,” Gomez, a Whittier, Calif. native, said. “It's a completely different team. … Our conference didn't expect us to show up this season. This class of freshmen really mingled together well with all the upperclassmen and everybody trusts that everybody's gonna do their job.”
With the win, Bethel improves to 19-7 overall and 7-2 in conference play. Left on the schedule for the Threshers is three straight road conference games consisting of Oklahoma Wesleyan, Southwestern, and Sterling.
With a victory in just one of those, Bethel will eclipse 20 wins in a season for the first time since 2010.
“Oklahoma Wesleyan is gonna be tough,” Leake said. “But just like every other team in our conference, I feel like they're beatable. They have a few things we haven't seen. They're really great on defense and have some big attackers. But I expect us to compete and come out and play like we always like we always do.”
Carter finished with nine kills and led the team in blocks with four. Mia Roman racked up 29 assists. Katey Wilhelm led all players with 32 digs. The Threshers are set to take on Oklahoma Wesleyan in Bartlesville, Okla. on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
