CEDAR RAPIDS - There aren’t enough superlatives to describe how top-ranked Aplington-Parkersburg opened the Class 2A state volleyball tournament Thursday.

Mediapolis head coach Dennis Jandrey had a word - wow!

After watching the Falcons dissect his 12th-rated Bullettes in a first-round match, 25-11, 25-17, 25-15, he expressed how impressed he was with Aplington-Parkersburg.

“They are a very talented group of young ladies ... huge and athletic,” said Jandrey. “They were at another level we hadn’t seen this year.”

The Falcons (38-2) not only beat Mediapolis, they destroyed it.

It started with A-P’s aggressive serve and ended at the net where the Falcons ruled the roost.

Aplington-Parkersburg set a 2A tournament record with 17 aces and recorded 14 blocks - five solos and 18 assisted.

“We came out on top of our game,” said Falcon senior Megan Schipper, who had 15 kills, seven aces and 2 1/2 blocks. “We knew we had to be ready to go. Everything came together tonight. We served aggressive and our blocking with Becky (Walters) and Neisha (Johnson) was awesome.”

Despite making 12 errors, the Falcons’ serving was the difference as Mediapolis struggled to get into system all night.

The Bullettes (35-10) didn’t record a kill in the match until Aplington-Parkersburg led 23-10 in game one. Until that point, all of Mediapolis’ points had come on Falcon errors.

For the match, the Bullettes recorded just 10 kills and hit at a negative .022.

“That is what we do,” said Falcon head coach Darrel Koenen. “We served aggressive, forcing them to make mistakes on their passing, and that hurt them.”

Jandrey was in total agreement with that assessment.

“They put us back on our heels from the start,” said Jandrey. “If you are going to free ball over the net and let them run offense all night, you are going to be in for a long night.”

When Mediapolis did manage to get the ball through the Falcon block and across the net, Aplington-Parkersburg’s array of weapons was another problem.

Neisha Johnson added seven kills and Becky Walters six for A-P. In addition, Rachel Vanderholt and Kasey Huisman had their own moments offensively.

The Falcons were successful on 35 of 61 attempts and committed just 11 attack errors.

Walters had five total blocks (two solo, six assisted), and Johnson (eight assists) had four total blocks.

“We were really fired up for the match,” said Walters, who’s joining Schipper as part of the University of Iowa’s 2006 recruiting class. “We played a lot of good defense. Our blocking was awesome tonight.”

The victory put the Falcons another step closer to their supreme goal - a return trip to the championship match and, hopefully, a shot at four-time defending champ Western Christian.

“We still have another match before we can talk about anything else,” said Schipper. “Right now, we just want to have fun out here and hopefully get a shot at our ultimate goal ... a state championship.”

The Falcons return to action tonight at 6 with a semifinal matchup against fifth-ranked Hinton.