The St. Marys volleyball team celebrates after defeating Trinity to advance to the W.Va. Class A state tournament. (Courtesy photo)

PARKERSBURG — The Class A state volleyball tournament will crown a new champion come early Tuesday afternoon inside the Walker Convocation Center at West Virginia State University.

East Hardy, which is led by first team all-state honorees Morganne and Chloe Miller, who are not related, have the top seed.

Head coach Marsha Hahn’s Cougars open play as the team to beat and will take on No. 8 St. Marys following the 8:30 a.m. Monday opening quarterfinal showdown between No. 4 Pendleton County and No. 5 Magnolia.

The quarterfinals resume at 1:30 p.m. Monday with No. 7 River View pitted against No. 2 Greenbrier West followed by No. 6 Sherman looking to take out No. 3 Wirt County, which is led by Little Kanawha Conference Player of the Year Addie Stephens.

“We are definitely happy to get a chance to play in the tournament,” admitted Wirt County head coach Katie Frazier. “We are a young team, at times having four girls at any given time that had zero high school experience prior to this year, on the floor.

“This team has done a great job of staying together all season long regardless of any external factors and they’ve really grown together to make them as prepared as possible for Monday.”

St. Marys fourth-year head coach Stephanie Corathers and her Blue Devils reached state for the first time ever.

One would need a novel to get through the ebbs and flows of the journey for the Pleasants County program to reach Charleston, only to find out their final destination was W.Va. State.

“I need that Trinity team. That’s the team I need to get on the bus,” admitted coach Corathers, who said her Blue Devils have continued to practice but had Thanksgiving off.

“This is the first time we’ve got to go. It still seams surreal at this point just because we’ve been on a rollercoaster.”

Of all sports, volleyball is one where the team aspect of psychology comes into play.

“I wouldn’t under estimate them. Definitely wouldn’t under estimate them,” admitted coach Coarthers. “We’re watching film and studying, but it’s a lot different than actually seeing them play in person. They are excited for the experience. I still feel like it’s surreal. Not knowing what to expect, but probably the last two weeks of our season we played really good against Magnolia and they are a good team.

“We’re excited. If the girls show up that played Trinity, like don’t under estimate St. Marys, and our other thing coming in is it’s took four years to build this program. We’ve never been on the radar. We had a lot of people tell us it’s all about basketball and football, but here we are. I think we surprised a lot of people.”

The Blue Devils, who are led by senior first team all-state selection Callie Powell, could face off against Magnolia in the semifinals.

Pam Chapman started her fourth decade in New Martinsville this fall, but is now in her second stint as the Blue Eagles first-year head coach.

“I decided to come back and I called Roger Clegg, who is now my assistant, and he said sure. We talked on the phone. It would be great to get the team back together,” said Chapman, whose Blue Eagles are led by senior second team all-state honoree Sienna McKeever.

The MHS head coach said the team “worked really, really, hard all season” and that early on she wasn’t sure if they could be a state tournament squad, but “probably the latter part of the season I told coach Clegg I think we’ve got a chance.”

Coach Chapman knows anything goes at the state volleyball tournament.

“I knew the potential was there, but with having some of those young kids in there I wasn’t sure how those young kids were going to be able to pick it up,” Chapman said.

“Just the speed of the game from junior high coming up. They’ve done a really good job of working hard and honing in all their skill and just getting better all the time.”

Magnolia and Pendleton County will be meeting for the first time.

“We’ve got some film on them,” Chapman added. “We’ve been just looking and trying to devise a plan. Sometimes the best laid plans don’t always work out because that momentum can swing in a matter of seconds and it can get away from you quickly. We are going to do our best and see what happens.”

Coach Chapman also said it felt like they hadn’t played in a month, but actually defeated Madonna in the regional co-final on Nov. 5.

“We’re going down Sunday,” added coach Coarthers, who is interested to see the look and feel of the state tournament since it’s not in Charleston and the Yellow Jackets have asked for mug shots of the players for the jumbotron. “That’s pretty cool to me. To play at that facility, it just seems brighter. They’ll do the announcing and put stuff up on the big screen.

“Because we’re waiting until after Thanksgiving we’ll have a pep bus going, but I want to say the key is to keep our mental game as good as our physical game. The average height of our whole team is 5-4, 5-5, so when you don’t have any. I have one girl who is 5-7 and that’s it. Your skills have to be there because we are not clocking the ball at everyone.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com