Lafayette beats rival Eureka to win Class 5 District 2 girls volleyball crown

Lancers are attempting to return to state for first time since 2019

EUREKA – After losing the first set of the Class 5 District 2 championship game on Tuesday night at Eureka, the Lafayette girls volleyball team was serenaded with chants from the Wildcats’ rowdy student section.

“This is our house,” the students chanted. “This is our house.”

The second-seeded Lancers had split matches with top-seeded Eureka during the regular season and were well aware of how tough and talented the host Wildcats are. Now, they trailed early.

What may have snowballed bigger trouble earlier in the season wasn’t an issue for Lafayette on Tuesday as the Lancers showed their resolve in an impressive 3-1 victory (23-25, 25-17, 25-22, 25-23) to claim the district championship.

“Coming into tonight we knew it could go a lot of different ways and it did go a lot of different ways at times,” Lafayette coach Zach Young said. “Our big thing is early in the year we had trouble when the wheels started to come off putting them back on again. I’ll credit our seniors and our leadership people, we’ve really come on late.”

The win was the 18th in a row for Lafayette (29-6), which advances to host Jackson (31-4-4) in the sectional round at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

“It feels incredible,” Lafayette senior Caitlyn Little said. “Honestly going into this match today we were all fired up. We went 3-0 yesterday against Marquette and I think that motivated us. We lost to Eureka this year … that loss really just helped us focus in and show us what we really want.”

Lafayette lost against visiting Eureka 3-0 on Sept. 14. The Lancers rebounded by beating the Wildcats 3-0 on Oct. 15.

Young cautioned about putting that win against Eureka into perspective. He noted that it was an 8 a.m. match in a tournament, but also that it was a good tournament and the Lancers’ play that day when they won four matches showed what they were capable of.

“I think coming out of there we thought, yeah, when we’re on we can play with anybody,” the coach said.

The Lancers will next face Jackson on Saturday as they attempt to return to the state semifinals for the first time since finishing as the Class 4 runner-up to Nixa in 2019, when seniors like Little and Layne Witherspoon were freshmen.

Lafayette lost to rival Marquette in the sectional round a year ago and Jackson lost to eventual Class 5 champion Cor Jesu in the sectional round. So neither team will be lacking for motivation.

When the Lancers secured the final point on Tuesday night, the emotion came out as they celebrated. There were tears. There were hugs. The Lafayette players knew they passed a tough test.

“We all came together as a team today,” Little said. “That really did show. This year we’ve dealt with a lot. One of our coaches actually died. We used a lot of the outside stuff going on in our lives to just motivate us in this game.”

Lafayette at Eureka girls volleyball

Photos from Nate Latsch