SALINA – Matt Allin gets it.
 
It's not easy to make a name for yourself in the ultra-tough Eastern Kansas League, or Class 6A for that matter, when you're a program that doesn't have a state volleyball title on your resume.
 
It's a league that boasts the likes of St. James Academy (nine state championships since 2008), St. Thomas Aquinas (six titles since 2001) and Bishop Miege (26 state titles overall) not to mention 2020 Class 6A state champion Blue Valley West.
 
And with West returning to defend its state title and seven-time champion Washburn Rural bringing a perfect 38-0 record into this weekend's Class 6A state tournament in Salina, the Mustangs went to state perhaps a bit under the radar despite fashioning a 35-2 mark.
 
"I would say yeah, maybe a little bit," Allin said. "But we were fine with that."
 
Whatever pre-state buzz was lacking surrounding Blue Valley North going into the state tournament is humming at a pretty high level after the Mustangs' showing in Salina. After sweeping its pool on Friday, Blue Valley North announced its presence as a state power on Saturday.

 
The Mustangs gutted out a hard-fought 25-16, 20-25, 25-23 win over 2020 state runner-up Olathe Northwest in the semifinals and then put on a show in the finals against defending champion and league rival Blue Valley West. Clicking on all cylinders from the opening serve, North blasted the Jaguars 25-10 in the first game of the championship match and finished them off with a 25-23 win in the second.
 
The victory capped a 40-2 season and delivered Blue Valley North the first state title in program history.
 
"It might have upset us just a little bit because we'd had a pretty good season," North senior Jasmine Dulan said of perhaps being a bit under-recognized. "We knew we were pretty good and it just shows you can't take anyone lightly. For us, we just didn't care what anyone was saying about us. We know how good we are."
 
And now so does the rest of the state.
 
"We have really high expectations and have been at the state tournament five of the last seven years," Allin said. "This team has strong middles, strong passing, strong pin hitters. We had two freshmen come in that were just difference-makers. … We just knew with two strong setters and all the weapons we had, we had a good shot."
 
North's performance during the regular season only backed up that notion. The Mustangs' only two losses during the regular season came to 5A and EKL powers Aquinas and St. James. 
 
And those just fueled their fire.
 
"It was an amazing season," Dulan said. "Our first loss to St. James at a tournament, it really grounded us. We just said, 'We don't want to lose again.' And then when we lost to Aquinas, it was like, "We don't ever, ever want to lose again.' It just made us so much better."
 

North was pushed right away in Salina, needing three sets to top Blue Valley West 25-16, 20-25, 25-21 in pool play on Friday. The Mustangs dominated their other two pool matches to earn the top seed from the pool, setting up a showdown with Olathe Northwest in Saturday's semifinals.
 
The team that showed up Saturday early wasn't necessarily one Allin really recognized. After dispatching Northwest 25-16 in the first set, the Mustangs fell 25-20 in the second set and were in a battle start to finish in the decisive third set before pulling out a 25-23 win to reach the finals for the first time since 2011.
 
"I think there were a lot of nerves there and we weren't being ourselves," Allin said. "We weren't swinging, weren't being aggressive. I was super proud of them to hang tough and overcome that because Olathe Northwest played awesome and at times out-played us. We just made the crucial points."
 
On the verge of making program history, the nerves that hampered the Mustangs in the semifinals were nowhere to be found in the championship match against West, the third time the rivals had met this season. North came out firing with six kills in a 7-1 start to the match and never let the foot off the pedal.
 
With Dulan and freshman Logan Parks hammering away from the outside and seniors Clara Benskin and Morgan DeBow pounding away in the middle, North put West on its heels in crushing the Jaguars, a Dulan kill finishing off the 25-10 first-set win.
 
West wasn't about to relinquish its title that easily, however, and got its offense going to take a 14-11 lead in the second set. But two blocks and a kill from Parks squared the match at 15-all and after another tie at 16, freshman Jenna McClure followed a Benskin block with two straight kills that put the Mustangs up for good.
 

The Jaguars hung tough, getting within 24-23 on a missed kill by North to fight off its third match point after North had gone up 24-20. But a tying kill attempt by West's Taylor Stockman sailed long and the Mustangs crashed to the floor in celebration of their first state championship.
 
"It's so crazy," Benskin said. "This has been our goal since freshman year so I'm so excited. I wouldn't have wanted to have done this with anyone else. We worked so hard and we came together so well as a team. We're all best friends and I think that's something we have that not many other teams have. That's what got us here.
 
"We beat so many talented teams and we deserved this."
 
If West came out a bit flat in the championship match, well, it was understandable. Just getting there took something not many gave the Jaguars a chance to do.
 
Going up against undefeated Washburn Rural in the semifinals, the Jaguars were decided underdogs, having lost to the Junior Blues during the regular season, getting dominated 25-15, 25-16.
 
When Rural erased an early 11-7 deficit to pull away for a 25-21 win in the first set, West's odds looked even longer. But the Jaguars snapped to life with a convincing 25-16 win in the second set to force a third set.
 
The third set was a doozy. Rural built a late lead only to have West string together a rally to tie the match 24-24. They each took turns having match points – the Jaguars thinking they had won when a Brooklyn DeLeye kill attempt was millimeters from being out – before finally taking a 28-26 win to hand Rural its first loss of the season.
 
The emotion win, West coach Jessica Horstick admitted, took its toll a bit.
 
"Especially that first set (against North), me included, we were just gassed," Horstick said. "We had spent so much emotional energy and I don't think people understand how much emotional energy you expend in volleyball. We just didn't have enough left to get one more match out of it."
 
Despite falling short of capturing a second straight state championship, Horstick said her team had nothing to hang its head about, finishing with a 31-11 mark.
 
"I could not be more proud of them," she said. "We had four freshmen out there in pivotal roles and they did an amazing job. … I was nervous (playing Rural) because they've won so many times and hadn't really been pushed. I knew they'd come back with a fire because they didn't want to give up that undefeated season.
 
"I've been there. We were undefeated in 2017 and finished runner-up. It was hard and that pressure is tough. I knew that pressure was getting to them and we just had to keep pushing."
 
Rural couldn't fully recover from its semifinal loss and dropped a 22-25, 26-24, 25-18 decision to end the season in fourth place with two straight losses after winning 41 straight matches going into Saturday.

 

SEMIFINALS
 
Blue Valley North def. Olathe Northwest, 25-16, 20-25, 25-23
Blue Valley West def. Washburn Rural, 21-25, 25-16, 28-26
 
CHAMPIONSHIP
 
Blue Valley North def. Blue Valley West, 25-10, 25-23
 
THIRD PLACE
 
Olathe Northwest def. Washburn Rural, 22-25, 26-24, 25-18