The Class 4A No. 8 Columbus East volleyball team had little to no trouble in taking care of Hoosier Hills Conference foe Bedford North Lawrence in dominating fashion Tuesday night 25-11, 25-7, 25-14 at Southside Elementary.
“We had a couple points there at the beginning of the first set where we struggled a little bit, but our errors, we corrected it,” East coach Ellyn McIntosh said. “We started to play clean volleyball, and from there on out, no real complaints.”
This season has been quite different for the Olympians (12-2, 3-0). They’ve had to play their regular-season games at Southside due to the flooding in late June that caused damaged to the gyms at East. The Olympians are hopeful they’ll be able to return to their home gym later this month.
One thing that stood out was that BNL had trouble adjusting to the small size of the gym with many balls hitting the low ceiling. With East having the experience playing in that gym, it wasn’t a problem for them Tuesday night.
“It was definitely hard at first. We had a lot of balls hitting the ceiling during practices, and that frustrated us,” East senior libero Cadence Gilley said. “We had to adjust to our tempo passing and kind of adjust how we all work together in the gym.”
“Our ball control, honestly, is probably better than it has been because of that,” McIntosh said. “We’re used to it in practice, and I told the girls at the beginning of the season that it’s going to help us out, it’s going to be an advantage to us when other teams come in here and play in this environment. At this point, I think we’re used to it, but I think they’re still excited to get back to the Orange Pit.”
After the Olympians scored the first two points, the Stars scored the next five to go ahead 5-2. East didn’t panic. Following a kill from Maddie Cline, a few service aces from Gilley and a kill from Gabby Dean helped the Olympians jump in front 8-5 that forced a BNL timeout.
The Olympians were ahead 10-7 until they rallied off five straight points capped off with a Reece Whitehead ace to extend the lead to 15-7. They grew the lead to double digits at 18-8 following a kill from Saige Stahl. East had no trouble from that point forward closing out the set.
In the second set, the Olympians went ahead 6-1. With the score 7-4, Dean served some aces during a stretch of 12 straight points to balloon the lead to 19-4 until the Stars finally responded. East then rotated several players into the game to finish off the set and take a 2-0 lead in the match.
“It’s awesome to see those girls getting some varsity experience so then I can know I can trust them in their positions even more rather than just seeing them in practice every day in those spots,” McIntosh said. “Game situations are always different, so that kind of experience for those girls is valuable.”
BNL showed one last fight early in the third set and kept it to within four points for most of the set. With the Olympians ahead 15-11, they rallied off four straight points to lead 19-11 and eventually close out the set and match.
“The team focus was try to play at our level, and we didn’t want to play down to them,” Gilley said. “We wanted to try some new things and get everybody in, and get everybody seen on the court today. That was able to happen, and that was good, and that was a good win for us.”
Katy Jordan tallied 25 assists and six digs for East. Gilley finished with seven aces and five digs, Whitehead had eight digs and four kills, Dean finished with seven kills and four aces, Libby Dippold had four kills and a block, Stahl added six kills and two blocks, Kenzie Foster had four aces, Cline had three kills and Chloe Gilley added seven digs.
The Olympians won their first nine games of the season until dropping two back on Sept. 4. East is beginning a new streak with their third straight win.
The schedule won’t be easy as the Olympians wrap up the month with road trips to HHC rival Floyd Central on Sept. 23 and sectional rival Bloomington South on Sept. 28 before facing off with crosstown rival Columbus North in what is projected to be their first home game in their newly refurbished gym on Sept. 30.
“The confidence has definitely been building since we beat Providence,” Gilley said. “We want to keep going, and we know we have such a good opportunity this year, and that we can go really far, so we just keep pushing everyday in practice and in games.”
