Stranger things have happened.
As Kelsey Perry and her Great Bend High School volleyball team embark on Class 5A sub-state play on Saturday at Newton, the GBHS head coach says one can throw all of the records out the window.
The sixth-seeded Lady Panthers, 17-17 overall, take on No. 3 seed Liberal (27-9) in an opening-round match on Saturday morning.
“It doesn’t matter at this point in the year, who you play or what your seeding is,” Perry said. “There’s some funny stuff that happens at regionals, where teams can surprise you and you just play really, really good and good things happen.
“We’ve been looking at having a great practice to end the week (today), and let everything go with Liberal and the last time we played them. We hopefully can get back to where we need to be successful.”
Providing the Lady Panthers can knock off Liberal, they would take on the winner of host Newton and Hays in the second round.
“We just need to start flowing together, make great passes and get it to where we need it to be,” Perry said. “We’ve played with all of them. We’ve beat Liberal, we’ve beaten Hays twice and we’ve played Newton (in a three-set loss).
“We’ve played all three, and we feel like we can prepare for that.”
Valley Center (34-3) is the No. 1 seed. Other seeded teams are as follows: Second-seeded Newton is 31-9, the No. 3 seed is Liberal, the No. 4 seed is Salina Central (27-12), the No. 5 seed is Maize South (25-12), the No. 7 seed is Hays (10-25) and the eighth seed is Salina South (8-29).