Stratton knows about winning

Senior part of 108 victories at Sacred Heart

Everything started to sink in on the bus ride back to Sedalia.

Meghan Stratton finished her senior year in a way everyone dreams — she went out on top and became an all-state volleyball player as well.

“I was very excited to see her go out with a state championship,” Sacred Heart coach David Fall said. “I think she’d be the first to tell you (earning all-state) is just icing on the cake.”

The Sacred Heart volleyball team’s lone senior was part of 108 wins in her career, including a 26-24, 25-21, win over Winona in the title match Nov. 3.

“Every town that we went by, we would yell at people and tell them that we won because we were so excited about it,” Stratton said. “That’s when it started to sink in.”

What sunk in at the start of the season was the need for Stratton to switch to a new position and become one of the team’s setters, something she’d never done at the high school level.

“She stepped into that role very unselfishly,” Fall said. “She led by example, she didn’t say anything, she just did whatever was asked.”

Fall said she made the switch without complaint, and moved from the strong-side hitter to the Gremlins’ right side for much of the season.

Stratton said the toughest part of setting was learning what type of set everyone likes.

“I was kind of thrown into the setting position,” Stratton said. “ ... It took me awhile to get comfortable.”

Not only did she become a good setter for the Gremlins, Stratton still had success as a hitter. The senior set the school record for hitting percentage with a .388 average.

Fall explained that hitting percentage was similar to what a batting average is for a baseball player — .300 is good and anything above that is incredible.

Stratton said she plans to play volleyball in college and is considering Longview Community College in Lee’s Summit. As a senior, making the Class 1 all-state first team capped the season nicely.

“I’ve always wanted to win all-state and I couldn’t have done it without the team,” Stratton said. “They were awesome and it just led to more rewards for the team.”

The Gremlins received plenty of awards this postseason. In fact, all six players earned some postseason honors.

Junior Paige Shipley joined Stratton on the all-state first team.

“Me and Paige took on a pretty big role because we always had to talk to the girls,” Stratton said about the team’s leadership. “If they were down, we had to get them up and stuff like that.”

Shipley was Sacred Heart’s other setter and did a solid job as a hitter as well.

“Paige had a great year,” Fall said. “Her best games were against big teams when we really needed it.”

Courtney Curtiss and Laura McMullin were named to the Class 1 all-state second team. Curtiss set the school record for aces with 98.

“Her biggest swings seemed to come at crunch time,” Fall said. “Her serves really put the opponents on their heels. We get a lot of free balls back off of her serves.”

McMullin was the Gremlins’ lone representative on the Springfield Kickapoo all-tournament team and set the school record for total kill-blocks.

“Laura just seems to get better and better,” Fall said. “This is the first year that she’s played all the way around.”

Kelsey Baldwin and Debbie Lewis earned postseason recognition as well. Baldwin received an honorable mention for the central region honors team, and Lewis earned an all-Kaysinger Conference honorable mention.

Baldwin finished the year with the school record for digs (343), breaking her own mark set the year before.

The Gremlins weren’t the only ones to earn all-state honors. Northwest and Cole Camp each had two players make the all-state teams.

Meredith Norfleet was named to the Class 1 first team for the Lady Mustangs while Kelcey Dankenbring made the second team.

Erin Rice earned Class 2 second-team honors for the Bluebirds while Chelsea Chamberlin earned honorable mention for her play.