Sandite Volleyball Falls 3-0 to Bishop Kelley, Ends Season at Regionals

The Charles Page High School volleyball team wrapped up a 14-17 season Tuesday evening with a 3-0 loss to No. 6 Bishop Kelley (21-12).

“We prepared much better than we played,” said head coach Skylar Jackson. “We know they run two different defenses…we worked on blocking well, we worked on attacking both defenses. We looked really sharp yesterday and we just didn’t play our best tonight.”

Sand Springs fell 25-13, 25-15, and 25-13 to the Comets, who went on to win a 3-0 sweep of No. 11 Mustang (22-8) for their 38th consecutive Regional Championship. The Sandites, meanwhile, have never won a Regional title, and haven’t survived the first round since 2017.

“We’re taking the right steps,” said Jackson. “We’ve just got to figure out our identity as Sand Springs Volleyball.”

The first game against the Comets was only as close as 7-6 before the home team went on an 8-1 run to put establish the tone of the sweep to come.

Sand Springs struggled to adjust to Kate Schneeberg, who doubled as middle blocker and setter, recording four blocks, 31 assists, and six kills, including tips and attacks.

Also posing a challenge was Indiana State-commit Curry Kendall, who amassed a game-high 17 kills as the most powerfully accurate hitter the Sandites have faced this season.

In game two the Sandites actually jumped out to an 8-4 lead with a seven-point run early in the game. Adelynn Ray scored three kills, Jayden Smith and Averi Tippit combined on a block, and Hannah McKelvey scored with a tipped ball during the exciting streak.

The Comets came surging back, however, with an 8-1 run, tying it up on an ace from Kate Strandmark before taking the lead on a pair of errors.

Sand Springs never led again, only getting as close as 13-12 before Schneeberg used a tipped ball to kick off a six point run. The Comets ended game two on a five point run to keep the momentum into set three.

The visitors got as close as 7-6 on a kill from Ray before a service error sparked a nine-point streak that put the game firmly in the Comets’ arena.

Alia DeBerry and Brooklyn Shope scored two kills apiece to make it 18-11 but it was too much of a deficit to overcome and Elle Miller put an end to the Sandites’ season.

Ray led the Sandites’ offense with 9 kills while Evyn Morrow led the defense with 13 digs. Hannah McKelvey had a team-high 10 assists.

The Sandites will be losing seven seniors next year, including four who saw significant playing time. Hannah and Faith McKelvey, Tippit, Morrow, Mikayla Bradford, Natalie Szabo, and Patience Pearce will all graduate in the spring.

“They’re strong at their positions for sure,” said Jackson. “They’re some of our stat leaders. Evyn’s definitely one of our energy leaders on the court. They’re going to leave a big gap next year for sure and our underclassmen are going to have to learn how to fill their shoes just like our current senior class did this year.”

BK 3 CPHS 0 (25-13, 25-15, 25-13)
Kills: BK 42, CPHS 21.
Blocks: BK 4, CPHS 2.
Aces: BK 7, CPHS 1.
Service Errors: BK 5, CPHS 5.
Total Errors: BK 17, CPHS 22.

(Sand Springs Stats)
Kills: Ray 9, Shope 4, DeBerry 3, Smith 3, Morrow 1, H. McKelvey 1.
Assists: H. McKelvey 10, Ray 7, Morrow 2, DeBerry 1, Shope 1.
Digs: Morrow 13, Shope 7, H. McKelvey 7, Ray 5, Smith 2, DeBerry 1, F. McKelvey 1.
Blocks: Tippit 1, DeBerry 0.5, Smith 0.5.
Aces: H. McKelvey 1.

(Bishop Kelley Stats)
Kills: Kendall 17, Gentry 6, Schneeberg 6, Laubach, 5, Williams 3, Liechtl 2, Toon 1, Jackson 1.
Assists: Schneeberg 31.
Blocks: Gentry 3, Schneeberg 2.5, Toon 0.5.
Aces: Williams 2, Strandmark 2, Jackson 2, Johnson 1.

Sandites Sweep Muskogee 3-0 on Senior Night

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It was a Senior Night sweep for the Sandites Tuesday night at the Ed Dubie Field House.

The Charles Page High School volleyball team (14-15, 1-7) earned its first conference win of the season, 3-0 against Muskogee (16-13, 0-8) in a dominant performance.

“Our conference is tough,” said head coach Skyler Jackson. “The Frontier Valley is full of teams that are always contending for the State tournament. It’s good to get a win in the conference.”

The visiting Roughers took a 4-0 lead to open the match but Sand Springs soon surged ahead with a 14-point streak led by five aces from Brooklyn Shope and a trio of kills from Averi Tippit.

After losing game one 25-14, Muskogee hung much closer in game two. Muskogee led 9-8 till Adelynn Ray heated up with four aces to put her team out front for the remainder of the set.

The Roughers cut it as close as 15-13 before a kill from Shope kicked off an 8-1 run to put the comeback firmly out of reach. Shope capped the win with another ace at 25-16.

Sand Springs never trailed after 2-1 in the final game, though the Roughers never quite let the Sandites pull away.

It looked like Sand Springs would run away with things after going up 17-8 on kills from Ray, Mikayla Bradford, and Patience Pearce, but the Roughers responded with four in a row to make it 17-12.

Sand Springs finished strong, however, and Evyn Morrow capped off an exciting final rally with a kill at 25-18.

Morrow, a senior, set the tone on defense with 24 digs to accompany her kill and four aces.

“Always exceptional,” said Jackson. “Even her bad days are good days for everybody else. She’s always our spark plug. She just goes hard, loves the game, and loves her team.”

Shope ended the night with six aces while Morrow and Ray had four apiece with a team total of 17.

“We have kind of gone up and down on our serve game, so it was nice to see some consistent, tough serving today,” said Jackson.

Shope led the offense as well with seven kills, followed by Tippit with six. Ray and Hannah McKelvey had nine assists apiece and Jayden Smith had 14 digs.

Before the match, the Sandites celebrated their seven seniors: Hannah and Faith McKelvey, Tippit, Morrow, Bradford, Natalie Szabo, and Pearce.

“It’s exciting, but it’s sad,” said Jackson. “Senior Night means the end of the season is around the corner.”

“Last year’s seniors really left a big hole and these seniors really stepped up and filled the gap. They’ve evenly shouldered the weight and they’ve been real role models and great teammates.”

Sand Springs will look to ride the momentum of its first conference win into a Thursday regular season finale at No. 3 Jenks (27-5, 8-0), who has already clinched the conference title.

The girls also received their postseason assignment this week and will travel to No. 6 Bishop Kelley (18-9) on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. The winner of that match will play for the Regional Championship at 7:30 p.m. against the winner of No. 11 Mustang (22-7) vs. Union (8-22).

“We’re just going to focus on us and continue to figure out how we can be aggressive and things that we can do to get better through that match and through our practices leading up to Tuesday.”

CPHS 3 Muskogee 0 (25-14, 25-16, 25-18)
Kills: CPHS 24, Muskogee 21.
Blocks: CPHS 2, Muskogee 1.
Aces: CPHS 17, Muskogee 5.
Service Errors: CPHS 8, Muskogee 5.
Errors: CPHS 21, Muskogee 32.

(Sand Springs Stats)
Kills: Tippit 6, Shope 6, Pearce 4, Smith 2, Morrow 1, Bradford 1, Ray 1, Egger 1, Szabo 1.
Assists: H. McKelvey 9, Ray 9, Morrow 2, Tippit 1.
Digs: Morrow 24, Smith 14, Ray 11, F. McKelvey 5, H. McKelvey 2, Pearce 2, Taff 1, Bradford 1, Shope 1.
Blocks: Tippit 1.5, Szabo 0.5.
Aces: Shope 6, Morrow 4, Ray 4, H. McKelvey 2, Tippit 1.

(Muskogee Stats)
Kills: Essex 9, Rodriguez 7, Chyenne 2, Russel 2, Ficklin 1.
Assists: Ficklin 10, Moore 4, Doughty 1, Tremblay 1.
Blocks: Russel 0.5, Lewis 0.5.
Aces: Rodriguez 2, Essex 2, Rainbolt 1.

Sandite Volleyball Throttles Will Rogers, Shope Ties School Ace Record

After a tough three-match skid, the Lady Sandite volleyball team is back on track following a dominant 3-0 sweep of Will Rogers High School (8-16) Thursday night at the Ed Dubie Field House.

The Sandites stormed out to a 17-0 start in the first game before the Ropers finally got on the board.

No. 16 Charles Page High School (11-10) won game one 25-5 before easing up and winning the next two 25-13.

“It was good to start with,” said head coach Skylar Jackson. “We let up quite a bit there but it was fine.”

Sand Springs dominated all aspects of the match from start to finish, totaling 36 kills while only allowing four. Most of the Ropers’ points came from Sand Springs mistakes.

Sophomore Brooklyn Shope tied the known school record for aces in a single match with 10, matching Madison Burris’s 2019 performance against McLain. Eight of those aces came during the 17-0 start to game one.

Freshman Adelynn Ray impressed on all sides of the ball, leading the team with 10 kills while also recording 11 assists, nine digs, and four aces. Hannah McKelvey led the team in assists with 23 while Shope led the defense with ten digs.

“It was a good time for that match to take place,” said Jackson. "We lost to Bixby (on Tuesday) but took a set from them and the girls feel pretty good about that.”

The Sandites lost a close first game on the road at Bixby, 25-20, before tying the match up with a 25-23 win.

Sand Springs stormed out to a 9-2 lead early in game two and never trailed, though the Spartans tied it twice at 17-17 and 23-23. A double hit gave the Sandites match point and Averi Tippit served an ace to steal the set.

Bixby (6-15) is unranked due to its strong strength of schedule but the Spartans are 4-1 in Frontier Valley Conference play and have stolen sets from many top teams this season.

The Spartans used a four-point run midway through the third set to break a 9-9 tie and never relinquished the lead. Sand Springs stayed close till 16-14 when a service error kicked off a 9-1 run for the Spartans and a final score of 25-15.

The final game was much closer thanks to a late Sand Springs rally. After falling behind 19-10, the Sandites found a rhythm with Jacelyn Smith scoring three kills in a row with assists from Ray.

Sand Springs was unable to tie it back up but the girls held close before falling 25-19.

Smith led the team with nine kills in that match, followed by Ray with eight. Tippit and Alia DeBerry scored seven apiece. McKelvey had a team-high 17 assists while Ray had 11. Evyn Morrow led the defense with 20 digs, followed by Shope with 16.

“Our girls just continue to work hard and continue to buy in,” said Jackson. “They’re a good, close team. We don’t have a lot of drama, they show up for each other and they work hard for each other. They’re a fun team to coach.”

Sand Springs will return to action Tuesday with a conference home match against Jackson’s former team - No. 5 Broken Arrow (15-7, 4-1). The Sandites are still looking for their first conference win of the season after an 0-5 start with four matches left.

CPHS 3 Rogers 0
(25-5, 25-13, 25-13)
Kills: CPHS 36, Rogers 4.
Blocks: CPHS 1, Rogers 0.
Aces: CPHS 18, Rogers 4.
Errors: CPHS 23, Rogers 20.
Service Errors: CPHS 10, Rogers 5.

(Sand Springs Stats)
Kills: Ray 10, DeBerry 9, Tippit 5, Smith 4, Shope 3, Pearce 3, H. McKelvey 2.
Assists: H. McKelvey 24, Ray 11, Morrow 1, Shope 1.
Assisted Blocks: DeBerry 1, Pearce 1.
Digs: Shope 10, Ray 9, Tippit 6, Morrow 5, H. McKelvey 4, DeBerry 2, F. McKelvey 1, Pearce 1.
Aces: Shope 10, Ray 4, Morrow 2, H. McKelvey 1, DeBerry 1.

Bixby 3 CPHS 1
(25-20, 23-25, 25-15, 25-19)
Kills: Bixby 48, CPHS 34.
Blocks: Bixby 9, CPHS 4.
Aces: Bixby 14, CPHS 11.
Errors: Bixby 35, CPHS 27.
Service Errors: Bixby 9, CPHS 5.

(Sand Springs Stats)
Kills: Smith 9, Ray 8, Tippit 7, DeBerry 7, Shope 3.
Assists: H. McKelvey 17, Ray 11, Morrow 2, Shope 1.
Solo Blocks: Tippit 1, DeBerry 1.
Assisted Blocks: Tippit 1, Shope 1, Pearce 1, DeBerry 1.
Digs: Morrow 20, Shope 16, DeBerry 6, F. McKelvey 4, Smith 4, H. McKelvey 3, Tippit 2, Pearce 1, Casey 1.
Aces: H. McKelvey 3, Tippit 3, Morrow 2, Smith 1, Shope 1, F. McKelvey 1.