The Nebraska Coaches Association has finalized the rosters for the 2012 NCA All-Star Volleyball team.

The 29th annual all-star volleyball match will be played on Tuesday, July 24, at Lincoln North Star High School beginning at 7:00 p.m.

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SIOUX CITY -- A season filled with unknowns has certainly yielded quite a few pleasant surprises.
As the Morningside College volleyball team heads into more of the same in the NAIA women's volleyball championships, first-year Coach Sara Horn can only hope a little ignorance keeps adding up to bliss.

"I really didn't know what to expect,'' said Horn, reflecting on her expectations as she prepared for her first season with the Mustangs. "People asked me how I thought we would be and I just didn't know.''
When Great Plains Athletic Conference coaches picked her team to finish eighth in an 11-team race, she was scarcely delighted.

Class A
(Ranking, Team, Record, Last Week’s ranking)
1. Papillion-LaVista South (41-0) 1
2. Omaha Marian (34-8) 2
3. Omaha Burke (32-7) 3
4. Lincoln Southwest (29-6) 4
5. Bellevue East (30-10) 6
6. Lincoln Northeast (22-17) NR
7. Grand Island (29-6) 5
8. Papillion-LaVista (17-20) 8
9. Millard West (17-17) 9
10. Omaha Westside (18-17) 7

Contenders: Lincoln North Star, Omaha Benson, Kearney

GRAND ISLAND - Prior to the 2011 State Tournament, Omaha Burke had never won a match in six prior trips.

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GRAND ISLAND - Seven busloads of Lincoln Northeast students and another 100 or so who made the trip on their own turned the Heartland Events Center into "Pershing Center West" on Thursday afternoon.

The Rockets made it well worth the trip. With a student section that outnumbered Grand Island's, Northeast overcame a shaky start to knock off the fifth-ranked Islanders on their own turf 16-25, 25-21, 25-16, 26-24 in a Class A first-round state volleyball tournament match.

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Lincoln Northeast's Craig Songster has one coaching regret this volleyball season. He says middle blocker Kassidy Sullivan should've been playing in the back row much earlier than she was.

In the second half of the season, the 6-foot junior became one of the Rockets' most reliable defensive players and a solid contributor in serve receive. Not bad considering defensive specialists spelled Sullivan as a sophomore and the first part of this season.

The official state tournament brackets will be released on Saturday morning by the NSAA.
A
Papillion-LaVista South (34-0) vs. Millard West (17-16)
Grand Island (19-5) vs. Lincoln Northeast (21-15)
Omaha Burke (30-6) vs. Bellevue East (30-9)
Omaha Marian (32-8) vs. Lincoln Southwest (29-5)

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Craig Songster studied the Class A volleyball field before the season began.

The Lincoln Northeast coach knew Papillion-La Vista South would be good, everybody did, but felt several teams may have a chance to be among the other seven teams to make the state tournament, and Lincoln Northeast could probably be one of them.

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OMAHA - Omaha Burke made good on one of its biggest volleyball goals of the season Wednesday night, qualifying for the state tournament.

The host Bulldogs will head back to state for the third consecutive year after defeating Kearney 25-13, 25-13, 25-21 in the District A-4 final. Third-ranked Burke boosted its record to 30-6 while the unranked Bearcats finish 20-14.

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Third-ranked Lincoln Southwest blocked and served its way to a 25-20, 17-25, 25-14, 25-14 victory over No. 7 Lincoln Northeast on Tuesday night in the championship semifinal of the Heartland Athletic Conference Tournament at Southwest High.

Surprising Northeast rallied to win the second set, the first set it had taken from Southwest in at least three years, according to coach Rockets Craig Songster. But the Silver Hawks showed power with a series of blocks in the third set and a string of ace serves in the fourth to advance to Thursday's championship match at Southwest.