Bishop Gorman and Faith Lutheran will travel to Reno this week for the Class 5A state volleyball tournament at UNR’s Virginia Street Gym, with semifinal matches Thursday and the championship set for 1 p.m. Friday.
Faith Lutheran captured the Southern Region title Saturday, handing three-time defending state champion Gorman its first loss to a Nevada team since the 2022 state tournament. The Crusaders won after dropping the first set 25-13, a result Gorman coach Gregg Nunley called a “wake-up call” for a team that came out “flat.”
Nunley said the defeat sparked a “fight” and “fire” he had not seen all season. “We’re excited to play some competitive volleyball,” he said. “We’re excited to be pushed and to push back. We can’t just show up and expect to play our best. We have to fight to play our best.”
Gorman (31-7), the South’s No. 2 seed, faces Northern champion Bishop Manogue (25-13) at 5:20 p.m. Thursday. Faith Lutheran (31-7), the Southern Region champion, meets Carson (27-5), the North’s No. 2 seed, at 7 p.m.
Faith Lutheran is making its first state tournament appearance since 2018 and has never won a girls volleyball title in the top classification. Coach Amy Fisher, who has led the program since 2006, said the team’s core has played together since middle school. The Crusaders are powered by sophomore outside hitter Abby Bunyan (419 kills), junior libero Ellee Ford (518 digs) and junior setter Olivia Kiel (612 assists), with Ford and Kiel each surpassing 1,000 career milestones in the region final.
Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal
Original reporting: Las Vegas Review-Journal →
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