As its season has approached the middle part of September, the Montgomery County volleyball team is off to a strong start at home, winning five of six matches.

The Wildcats played all five of their home matches in a span of a week (Sept. 5-Sept. 12). They beat North Callaway, Bowling Green, New Haven and Wright City before losing a four-game match to Union on Sept. 12. MCHS also has  a win over St. Louis Christian Academy on Sept. 18.

“It’s nice when they are at home,” MCHS coach Rachel Leu said. “But when they are away, they’re not fun.”

The Wildcats are guaranteed to finish with another winning season at home. They will celebrate senior night  on Sept. 26 against St. Clair and wrap up their home season on Oct. 3 against Centralia.

Last year, the Wildcats finished 7-4 at home, three of those matches were at the Class 2, District 6 tournament. Leu said it is important for her team to turn in a strong effort in its final home matches, especially since it has five seniors who are playing their final season with the Wildcats.

“I think one of the things that the girls are dealing with a little bit is they’re starting to realize that this is it,” Leu said. “This is their last year. They have to go all out. I just want to make sure I do a good enough job as a coach to have them prepared so that when we’re playing teams like Union, maybe we could get some better results that we want.”

Morgan Koch is one of those seniors. For many years, she watched three of her older sisters – Kayla, Kristin and Kelsey – play for the Wildcats. Now, she will be the last one in her family to play for the program.

“I always have to remind myself that I am the big girl now and I am the varsity player because I had three older sisters who played volleyball,” Koch said. “It’s just hard to remind myself that I’m a senior now. I’m on the varsity. People are coming to watch our varsity team. When I was a freshman watching these games, I said, ‘Wow, I can’t wait to be there one day.’”

The Wildcats will not host a district tournament for the first time in seven years. They will hit the road in this year’s postseason as they travel to Hermann in the Class 2, District 6 tournament that includes Calvary Lutheran, Tolton Catholic, Linn, New Bloomfield and North Callaway.

Leu said she was impressed with her team’s five-game victory over New Haven on Sept. 7. The Wildcats won 25-18, 25-17, 14-25, 21-25 and 15-12 over the Shamrocks, who defeated MCHS in each of the last two years.

“We won the first two pretty rightfully so, then we kind of slipped a little bit in the next two,” Leu said. “I really proud of the girls for getting back together with each other, getting out there on the court, playing better as a team and coming out with a win in the fifth set.”

The Wildcats lost to Union for the fourth straight year. They lost 9-25, 12-25, 25-22 and 15-25.

“We could have been better,” Leu said. “We’ve got to work on being better prepared for those types of teams because our schedule only gets tougher from here on out. They’re a good team. They kept the ball in play, they attacked and ran their offense very well. So we have to make sure that we’re better about taking advantage of the opportunities when we get them and help create our own momentum going into the game and not just relying on other teams to make mistakes.”