Nevada Middle School volleyball splits at Tri-County tournament

The Nevada Middle School's seventh- and eighth-grade volleyball teams began play in the Tri-County Tournament Monday, with mixed results.

Head coach Marsha Hooper's seventh graders entered the tournament as the second seed and showed why they were ranked so high, defeating Joplin South in two sets, by the final scores of 25-18 and 25-13, in the first round of the tournament at McDonald County. Webb City defeated Joplin North, 21-25, 25-21 and 25-21, top-seeded Carthage defeated McDonald County, 25-10 and 25-6, and Neosho downed Joplin South, 25-18 and 25-13, in Monday's other first-round matches.

Results were not as good for head coach Gail Wilson's eighth-grade volleyball team in its tournament at Joplin North. Webb City defeated Nevada, 25-19, 23-25 and 25-19, to advance to Tuesday's semifinals.

The seventh graders returned to action in Anderson Tuesday, taking on Webb City in what turned out to be a very closely contested match. Hooper's squad was forced to come from behind after dropping the first set, 25-15, but ultimately did just that, taking the next two by the final scores of 25-12 and 25-18 to win the match and move on to play for the tournament championship.

Things didn't go quite as well for Nevada in the championship match, as Carthage took the victory in two sets, by the final scores of 25-20 and 25-17. That loss brought Nevada's season to an end with a record of 11-3.