SEYMOUR — In its first two Hoosier Hills Conference matches of the season, Columbus East has played marathon volleyball.
Coming off a five-set loss to Jeffersonville, the Olympians looked to play spoilers at Seymour on Tuesday.
The Olympians outlasted the Owls 25-22, 18-25, 27-25, 21-25, 15-10 to pick up their first HHC win.
“It didn’t go this way on Saturday (against Jeffersonville). It was a great fight, a great turnaround for us,” East coach Stacie Pagnard said. “There was a lot of battle and a lot of emotion out there. We did a great job of playing clean and cutting down the unforced errors in the fifth set.”
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The Olympians (2-1, 1-1) came out strong, winning the first five points of the match behind four serves from Allison Mack. East built a lead as large as 13-4 before the Owls (3-1, 1-1) started chipping away at the deficit. Up 17-15, the Olympians took a timeout. Seymour rallied to tie the score at 22 with a kill, but East won the next three points and took the set on a block from Regann Jessee.
Cadence Gilley got the Olympians off to a solid start in the second set, as East again won the opening five points on serve. Seymour answered the run by winning six straight points to take the lead. The teams tied the score three times before the Owls slowly started to pull away.
A 5-0 run put Seymour up 21-12. While East was able to get within reach at 22-17, the Owls buckled down to tiethe match at 1-1 at 25-18.
Seymour got a jump in the third set to go up 7-1. The Owls built their lead as large at 15-5, but the Olympians came all the way back. Winning the next 10 points, East tied the game at 15.
After trading the lead twice, Seymour was able to get a small edge at 23-21. Down 24-23, Regann Jessee had a kill to keep East alive. The teams then tied at 25 before an Owls hitting error and hit by Rilee Jessee won the set for the Olympians.
Seymour again started strong in the fourth set, winning six straight points to lead 7-1. While East got within four, at 12-6, Seymour was determined to push the match to a fifth set. The Owls used a pair of small runs to lead 23-14. East cut the score to 23-19, but a block on the front line and an Olympians serving error ended the set.
East jumped to a 3-0 lead before Seymour tied the fifth set at 7-7. A mini 4-0 run, on serves by Regann Jesse, put the Olympians up 14-8 before a serving error by the Owls ended the match.
CJ Clausen led East with seven blocks to go along with three aces. Rilee Jessee had four four blocks, and Gilley had four aces and 20 assists.
Madyson Foster totaled 15 assists. Allison Mack had 32 digs, and Ashlyn Bergman added 20 digs for the Olympians. Mack pounded 11 kills, while Reece Whitehead had eight and Riley Jessee added seven.
Pagnard said there is a lot to build off of on the win.
“We don’t play a very easy schedule,” she said. “We go to Yorktown this weekend and go to Providence next week. We are battle-tested, which is a good thing. It’s nice to pull out a conference win like this.”
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