Volleyball Preview: Olathe West Owls vs. Olathe East Hawks
After starting their season with 16 straight games on the road, Olathe West is finally coming home. They will look to take advantage of their home-court as they take on the Olathe East Hawks at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Olathe West will be strutting in after a victory while Olathe East will be coming in after a loss.
Olathe West is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Kansas' top teams: Shawnee Heights, who was ranked 25th in their home state at the time (Olathe West was ranked third). Olathe West came out on top against Shawnee Heights by a score of 2-0 on Saturday.
After all that action, the final score was 25-15, 25-21.
Kaiya Finazzo and Neely Leathers were among the main playmakers for Olathe West as the former had 15 digs and the latter had five digs. That's the most blocks Leathers has posted since Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Olathe East was not able to break out of their rough patch on Tuesday as the team picked up their third straight defeat. They fell just short of Shawnee Mission East by a score of 3-2.
Olathe East started the match hot and won the firsttwo sets, but they struggled down the stretch and lost the last three. Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 23-25, 22-25, 29-27, 25-15, 15-11.
Even though they lost, Olathe East was lethal from the service line and finished the game with ten aces. The team's really been improving in that area: they've now improved they're ace total in four consecutive contests.
Olathe West is on a roll lately: they've won eight of their last nine matches, which provided a nice bump to their 14-2 record this season. As for Olathe East, their loss dropped their record down to 1-4.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Tuesday's matchup: Olathe West has serving mastered this season, having averaged 5.2 aces per game. However, it's not like Olathe East struggles in that department as they've been averaging 6.6. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Olathe West took their win against Olathe East when the teams last played back in October of 2023 by a conclusive 3-0. Will Olathe West repeat their success, or does Olathe East have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
