Even though it had a couple of more home matches remaining, the Montgomery County volleyball team decided to celebrate its senior night against Bowling Green on Oct. 10 at Ballew & Snell Court.

It turned out to be a good decision for the Wildcats.

MCHS gave seniors Ava Rakers, Avery Leu and Alexis Ramo a nice sendoff with a 20-25, 25-17, 15-25, 25-20, 15-9 victory over the Bobcats. The trio has been playing with the Wildcats’ volleyball program since they were freshmen.

“It’s an honor,” Leu said. “It’s the greatest honor I could ever ask for. The win was amazing. I almost started crying. I couldn’t hold it together. It was crazy, but it was good.”

The Wildcats improved to 3-15 with the victory. They bounced back from a three-game loss to Centralia two nights before that eliminated them from the Eastern Missouri Conference championship race. MCHS won league titles in each of the last six years.

“It’s so exciting,” Rakers said. “I’m so glad that we were able to pull it off. It shows how hard we worked. Obviously, our record showed that we haven’t been very successful, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been successful as a team. We’ve definitely grown over the season.”

MCHS was scheduled to play a home match on Oct. 14 against Hallsville. The Wildcats wrap up their home season as well as their regular season on Oct. 17 against Centralia.

Rakers said her team wanted to play an EMO team for its senior night contest, so it picked Bowling Green as its opponent.

“Bowling Green has always been a scrappy team for conference,” Rakers said. “We knew that we wanted to come out and prove that we were capable of doing something. We didn’t want to be a ‘Oh, just go out and make it an easy match.’ We wanted to have to work to win.”

The Wildcats avenged the five-game loss to Bowling Green on the road on Sept. 10. Before this season, MCHS hadn’t lost to the Bobcats since 2017.

“Honestly, it’s what we’ve always done,” Leu said. “If we lose to them, we will come back and beat them. It gives us that extra fire that we can beat that team and we can do better. It gives us energy.”

With the fifth game tied at 3-3, the Wildcats went on a 4-0 run – including a pair of aces from sophomore Megan Pierson – to take a 7-3 lead. They later extended that lead to 13-7 on kills by Pierce and Ramo and a Bowling Green hitting error.

MCHS played its third fifth-game match of the season. Ramo said she was pleased with her team’s effort.

“We had such a great mentality in this game,” she said. “I think we pushed our limits. We pushed ourselves and I’m so proud of our team.”

All three of the Wildcats’ wins came at home. MCHS beat North Callaway in three games on Sept. 19 after an 0-6 start. The following week, the Wildcats beat Wright City in four games for their second victory.

With the win over Bowling Green, MCHS improved to 3-4 in EMO play. It wraps up its conference season in the Oct. 17 home match against Centralia, which has a 6-1 record in league matches and already clinched the EMO title.