Thorp is drive-thru country.

If you’re driving along the zig-zagging stretch of asphalt that bisects the little town, chances are you live there, are getting gas or are just passing through. To most of the world, Thorp is a fruit stand, an Arco station and miles of open land. It’s the sort of town where you had to have grown up there to really appreciate what it has to offer.

Maybe that’s why it was so surprising to Jesse Stueckle to see Thorp in newspapers and on Web sites all over the state.

“You hear all about Kittitas being ranked second (in the state). Not us,” Stueckle said. “Poor Thorp. Always forgotten.”

The Thorp High School volleyball team thrives on obscurity. Before practice Wednesday afternoon, Stueckle, the Tigers’ head coach, asked his team for a guess on the average crowd at home games.

“Five?” one player joked. “Maybe?”

Five may be a low-ball estimate, even for a school with about three dozen students. Yet the crowd is certainly small enough for Stueckle to know that coaches and pollsters haven’t been packing the house.

Which is why it’s a little surprising to the Tigers that they’re ranked third in the state.

“How do they put those rankings together?” Stueckle asked. “I could slap No. 3 on anyone. Nobody watches 1B volleyball.”

Perhaps they should start. The Tigers are 7-2 and are fighting for a league championship. In a top-heavy league that features fellow ranked teams Wilson Creek and Moses Lake Christian, the Tigers are confident this is their best chance to earn one of two state tournament berths.

“We’ve worked really hard,” said outside hitter Morgan Lowery, the only senior on a young squad. “We should have some of the spotlight shone on us.”

Leave that to the polls. Stueckle says he can’t remember a time in the past decade in which Thorp has cracked the top five. Even last year, when the Tigers finished 13-5, they couldn’t break in. Which is why Stueckle is so skeptical.

Not that it matters much to him. Rankings are just another number, a subscript to the numbers that actually count for something.

“All that matter is who’s the best at the end,” Stueckle said. “That’s where we want to be playing our best volleyball.”

It doesn’t hurt to do it in the middle of the season, either. The Tigers are undefeated at home. Despite losing to Wilson Creek on the road last week, they didn’t slip an inch in the polls.

A loss to Wilson Creek is an all-too-familiar sight to this team. Last year, they lost to the Devils four times, including twice in the playoffs. They lost to Moses Lake Christian once. Guess who was left out of the state picture?

“I thought we could make it to state last year, too,” Lowery said, “but we just couldn’t beat Wilson Creek.”

The Tigers accomplished that goal early, beating Wilson Creek at home in September. They beat Moses Lake Christian on the road earlier this month. And they’re only going to get better.

Lowery is the only senior. Kelsey Hutchinson, Jerica Reiners and Elise Loewen are all juniors and have all been key to the team’s success this year. Hutchinson may as well be a senior, having played with Stueckle and the team since her eighth-grade year.

But it’s not as if volleyball runs through the Thorp gene pool. This is all a product of hard work.

“It’s all about the small things,” Stueckle said. “We work on the small things in practice, which equates to winning. We can’t set a goal to win games. That’s ridiculous. What we can work on is passing, getting our hands in better position to serve, things like that. If we do that, good things will happen.”

Good things are happening in Thorp, a little down the road from the fruit stand. Stueckle just doesn’t want anyone to think it can’t get better.

“To me, (rankings) are just eye candy,” Stueckle said. “I don’t think we’re the best yet. To be honest, I’d rather be ranked fourth than third.

“I’m sure all of Thorp will be up in arms over that,” he joked. “All seven of them.”