By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Over the next four days, high school girls’ volleyball teams from across Missouri that earned their way here will compete for a state title at the Civic Arena.
The St. Joseph Sports Commission found out three years ago the event would be coming and are now excited to welcome 20 teams from all five classes to St. Joseph to compete.
Executive Director Brett Esely says when they first started the Sports Commission back up in 2022, they began looking at events that could fit here
“Right about then we received several bid packages from the state high school activities association, one of which was volleyball, and looking at the specs, looking at what they needed, looking at who was playing well around the area, we quickly went to work on that bid,” Esely says on the KFEQmunnity show. “We had an opportunity to entertain some folks from the MSHSAA office that summer and walk them through the facility, walk them through some plans on how we though the championship would be great here.”
Esely says in September of that year they were lucky enough to get the call that Civic Arena had been selected to host the championship for three years, beginning today.
Esely says those that come to the Civic Arena are in for watching a high level of competition
“We’ve got six teams in this field that won more than 30 games this year, it used to be a pinnacle of your season to win 20, let alone win 30, and five teams have done that,” Esely explains. “And I always say this to, I’ve had people ask me who are the favorites, you know I’ll be honest other than record and noting teams on paper I don’t know a lot about these teams, but I do know this if you get to this level of competition you can win it.”
All tickets to the event must be bought ahead of time through the Missouri State High School Activities Association’s website. No tickets will be available at the arena.
Esely credits the city of St. Joseph for its commitment to upgrading the arena and making it more modernized. Esely says while it’s a misconception things were not happening at the arena prior to improvements, he points out now event owners want modernized facilities
“Does Division One women’s college basketball come to this venue without these improvements? Absolutely not. Does state volleyball come to this venue without these improvements? Absolutely not.” Esely says. “Does this venue continue to be sought after for major college events, MIAA volleyball that we’ve been fortunate now to host, this will be year four, absolutely not, do we have an opportunity to bring a new tournament to town in the Great Lakes Valley basketball championship that will begin March 27th? Absolutely not.”
Esely says the renovations and improvements were vital, but now it’s about keeping up with it, because things events are looking for will continue to evolve.
The tournament gets started at noon today and runs through Saturday. Locally, at 2pm today East Buchanan will face Hermann for a trip to the championship.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.