The Perryville Lady Pirates hosted a tournament October 3 that featured schools from around the area, including the cross-town rival St. Vincent Indians.
Perryville started the morning splitting with Scott City before getting wins over Northwest and Clearwater to finish pool play.
The Lady Pirates lost in the opening round of tournament play in the gold bracket against Leopold, who would eventually lose in the gold bracket final to Potosi.
“I think we were probably down when we played Scott city, we ended up splitting with them. So that was something we weren’t really expecting, but it was the first game of the day so we made sure to get past that,” Perryville coach Liz Meyer said. “We ended up beating Northwest both sets and also Clearwater both sets. The girls played really well against those two teams. When we then got to the tournament play we had about a two hour break from our last game to our first round and we came out a little slow against Leopold. Leopold’s a pretty good team, we beat them already twice this season. We knew that they were probably coming out for blood to try to beat us. They made less errors than we did, and they ended up beating us.”
St. Vincent ended up in the bronze bracket following a difficult pool in which they had to play Leopold, Fredericktown, and eventual champions Potosi. The Indians won their opening bronze round matchup against South Iron before losing in the bronze bracket final to Metro.
“I was pleased with how we competed at times against all three teams, but we tend to have a rough spot in the middle of each set and then make our comeback a little too late,” St. Vincent coach Sue Verseman said. “If we can eliminate that run in the middle of games, I think we can be competitive in these next two weeks. We are encouraging the girls to eliminate mistakes and play more confidently and if we can do that we can win a couple more matches.”
Records and milestones
Players from both St. Vincent and Perryville broke and tied school records in the closing weeks of the 2026 season, while reaching career statistical milestones.
Emma Blechle and Paige Berkbigler both reached 100 career aces for Perryville. Blechle also tied the PHS single game record for aces with 10 against North County days before the tournament, she is now tied with Kayla Buxton, who had 10 in a game in 2013.
“I’ts really crazy because I was two away from it sophomore year and I was pretty bummed about that,” Blechle said of the single game record. “So it is really exciting to get it done this year.”
“It is really cool for all of us and will hopefully give us some momentum for the rest of the season,” Berkbigler added. “I can’t believe it, I didn’t realize this would be such a big goal of mine, but now that I have hit it it is really cool.”
Berkbigler reached 1,000 career assists in a match against Chester on October 7.
St. Vincent’s Sophie Verseman reached two career milestones in one week. She reached 500 career kills and 200 career blocks.
“I’m very proud of Sophie’s accomplishments this past week,” coach Sue Verseman said. “She currently has the highest hitting percentage which has helped her reach the 500 kill mark, I’m even more proud of the blocking as 200 blocks since not everyone pays attention to defensive efforts.”
Both teams will play three more regular season matches before the district tournament begins on October 20. Perryville is seeded second and will play their first postseason tournament match on October 22 against the winner of Ste Genevieve and Central Park Hills, who play on October 20. St. Vincent was seeded fifth and will play 4th seeded North County on October 20, the winner will face top seeded Potosi on October 22. The finals are scheduled for October 26 at 6 p.m.
