Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CORALVILLE – Sometimes the story is just that good.

Every sports writer is always looking for the story. An interesting angle to play up. An analysis to offer.

Covering the Liberty High volleyball on its journey to a state title this week at the Class 5A state tournament, that wasn’t necessary.

The story was just that good.

“This really is the perfect way to end the season and my senior year,” Liberty High senior Cassidy Hartman said. “It’s the best way possible to end it.”

The storylines don’t come any better or more plentiful.

Nearly every part of the Liberty High run to the 5A state title was perfect.

A team winning a title in just its sixth season of varsity competition.

The first team state title in school history.

Seniors like Hartman and Shelby Kimm, four-year starters that have built the program from the ground up while creating a monopoly on the Liberty record books, getting a storybook ending with a title in their final season.

The story is just that good.

“It’s unbelievable,” Kimm said. “It’s so special to go off with a win in your senior season.”

That’s just the start.

First-year solo head coach Allie Kelly took over for Randy Dolson this season after serving as an assistant coach for Dolson who built the program into a winner.

In her first solo season Kelly led the Lightning a 33-8 record with 24 victories against ranked opponents including 11 wins over top-five ranked teams.

“I am just really grateful,” Kelly said. “We have a really supportive community behind us, I have an excellent staff that keeps all of our heads in the right place. Our seniors did an incredible job building this program, Randy and Peggy Dolson did an incredible job building this program. I am just really thankful because it takes a lot of pieces to do something of this magnitude and thankfully, we have them.”

The story just gets better.

The Liberty High seniors finished with a 125-19 record in their four-year prep careers.

Win number 125 came against defending state champion Pleasant Valley in the 5A title game Thursday.

The same Pleasant Valley program that handed Liberty High a four-set loss in its first ever state tournament appearance in 2019.

“We learned a lot from all the past years,” Hartman said. “We learned a lot but it motivated us too.”

Hartman had six kills in that state tournament debut match against Pleasant Valley as a freshman.

With 24 kills in the 5A title match on Friday she ends her prep career with 174 kills in eight state tournament matches.

Hartman had at least 17 kills in each of her final seven matches at state and had 64 in three matches this season.

“To be able to end it like this, with this team,” Hartman said. “You can’t ask for any more than that.”

There is more to the story.

Many people figured the title for the Lightning would come last season following a runner-up finish in 2020 but Liberty High was upset set in the opening-round by eighth-seeded Johnston.

Liberty High lost the first set of it quarterfinal against No. 11 Urbandale on Monday.

It lost the opener to an impressive Pleasant Valley team on Thursday.

None of it stopped the Lightning.

“We have worked so hard for it,” Hartman said. “This team has had so much grit and wanting it from last year. We called it our revenge season.”

What about senior Lilah VanScoyoc?

Now that’s a story.

Unlike classmates Hartman and Kimm, VanScoyoc didn’t play a prominent varsity role as a freshman.

She had a modest 71 kills during the Liberty High runner-up season in 2020.

Who did Liberty High turn to in the fourth set on Thursday with a state title on the line?

VanScoyoc, who responded by pounding eight of her 14 championship-match kills in the final set.

“It feels amazing,” VanScoyoc said. “There are no other words for it.”

How about senior libero Isabelle Mehmen who had 79 of her career-high 385 digs this season in three state tournament matches including a team-leading 36 in a quarterfinal win over Urbandale?

That’s another story.

And a good one at that.

And how about the first title in program history coming in Coralville?

In the first year the state tournament moved from Cedar Rapids to just a few miles from the Liberty High campus at Xtream Arena hundreds of students were in the stands to watch history.

Lightning gave their peers a show worthy of remembering.

“It really means a lot and it means even more because we are in Coralville and there were so many people here watching us and supporting us,” Van Scoyoc said. “That was perfect.”

Coaches will sometimes say when you have great players you try to stay out of the way.

The same can be said of sportswriters.

When the story is this good you just try to stay out of the way and let the athletes and coaches tell their own story.

That’s what I tried to do this week covering the Lightning.

Get out of the way and let Allie Kelly, Cassidy Hartman, Lilah VanScoyoc, Shelby Kimm, Isabelle Mehmen, Asta Hildebrand, Mariah Rollins, Lauren Ramspott, Gracie Hennings and the rest of the Lightning do the work.

I just sat back and watched.

And Liberty High delivered a masterpiece.

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