OMAHA - A pair of Omaha Marian standouts will continue their
volleyball careers at Creighton University, as Bluejay head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth announced the additions of Kate Elman and Ashley Jansen on the opening day of the spring signing period today.

The duo join fall signees Melanie Jereb (Cary, Ill.) and Lauren Smith
(Lincoln, Neb.) as newcomers who will be freshmen in the fall and have four years of eligibility at Creighton. Elman and Jansen are expected to compete for playing time as defensive specialists or the libero spot in the fall.

"We're thrilled with the addition of Kate and Ashley," said Booth. "Both of them will be phenomenal additions to our backcourt, both serve receive and defensive-wise. Perhaps more importantly they're great young women that will bring energy to the gym and represent Creighton, the athletic department and themselves, with class and respect."

FREMONT - Coach Paul Giesselmann has released his 2012 recruiting class for Midland University’s 2012-13 volleyball squad. The Warriors, coming off a 20-win season and their first ever appearance in the GPAC Semifinals, will add an impressive list of 12 new names to next year’s roster, including 10 all-state achievers and nine all-conference athletes.

“We are really happy with our second recruiting class at Midland,”said Paul Giesselmann, Midland University volleyball head coach. “When you combine this class with last year’s group, I believe it sets Midland Volleyball up to be a competitive program for several years. The class has a great mix of a couple players who potentially could help us on the varsity immediately, several players that with a couple years of training will be very strong contributors for us, and a couple players that are going to be great role players that we can plug into several positions.”

Of the 12 athletes, 10 have led their high school volleyball teams to conference championships. Seven recruits hold school records and six have led their teams to top-8 or better state tournament finishes.

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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Three Nebraska teams were ranked in the ESPN final 50 national rankings, including Papillion-LaVista South at No. 1, Lincoln Pius X at No. 33 and Omaha Marian at No. 47.

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Prior to this season, an Omaha Public Schools team had never won a match at the state volleyball tournament.

Omaha Burke outside hitter Nicole Walker helped change that, leading the Class A runner-up Bulldogs to a 32-7 record and two tourney wins. That performance capped her senior year at Burke and landed her a spot on this year's All-Metro Conference squad.

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It was another overpowering season for Papillion-La Vista South, which once again dominates the All-Nebraska volleyball team.

Three Titans — twin sisters Kadie and Amber Rolfzen and Kelly Hunter — repeat as first-team selections. That trio helped Papio South finish undefeated for the second straight year, secure the school's second Class A crown and earn a No. 1 rating from two national websites.

Darren Ivy/NebVolleyball Iowa State's Tenisha Matlock makes a dig at the UNK Spring Volleyball Tournament while fellow Nebraskans Kelsey Petersen (8), Jamie Straube (14), Caitlin Mahoney (7) and Carley Jenson (1) look on.

When the NCAA Div. I Volleyball Tournament gets underway on Thursday and Friday across the country, the state of Nebraska will be well represented on the rosters of the teams that made it.

The home-state University of Nebraska-Lincoln volleyball team boasts eight Nebraska natives on its roster, but there are also at least 14 other native Nebraskans on other team's rosters that made the tournament.

Of these 22 Division I players, they hail for 20 different Nebraska high schools.

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After watching their teams lock up state volleyball titles, coaches Gwen Egbert of Papillion-La Vista South and Jake Moore of Lincoln Pius X each pointed to a regular-season match that had a major impact on their squads.

Both were against Omaha Marian.

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 - Omaha Marian hit top-ranked Papillion-LaVista South with its best shot in the first set of the Class A semifinal at the Heartland Events Center on Friday morning, but the Titans withstood two set points to win 28-26 and didn't look back in winning the next two sets 25-19, 25-18 to advance to their second-straight championship match and extend their winning streak to 77-straight matches..

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