Columbus East’s Kenzie Foster gives the victory sign as she celebrates with her teammates after defeating Franklin Community in Saturday’s sectional final at Columbus East High School.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
After dropping a five-set sectional final match on their home floor as sophomores, this year’s Columbus East seniors weren’t about to let it happen again.
So after falling behind Franklin Central two-sets-to-none Saturday night, the Olympians went to work. They grinded out a third-set victory, then controlled the fourth and fifth to pull out a 19-25, 18-25, 25-22, 25-14, 15-5 win for their second consecutive sectional title.
“I told them after the second set just not to make the moment too big,” senior libero Kenzie Foster said. “It’s happened two years ago to us, and I said we’re not going to let it happen again in our home gym. I told everyone just to play the hardest they could play, and we would pull out the win.”
The Grizzly Cubs (21-10) never trailed in the first set, and were never down by more than three in the second set in jumping out to the two-set advantage.
“I just told them that we needed more energy, more intensity, more communication,” East coach Ellyn McIntosh said. “Those are all things that we’ve been working on throughout this week preparing for the match, and they responded. Franklin knew what we were running every ball, every serve-receive, so I told them we had to switch it up a little bit, and we did for a little bit, and then we went back to our bread and butter,” McIntosh said. “But it was just enough to throw them off.”
The Olympians (20-12) never trailed in a third set that was close the whole way. They caught a break in the fourth set when, leading 18-12, Franklin setter Kennedy Urban went out with a sprained ankle.
East took advantage to close out that set.
“I think it was our front row being more aggressive,” senior setter Erin Williams said. “We came out in the first two sets, and instead of coming out swinging, we were tipping and rolling, and we just need to go in and swing until they stop you basically.”
The Grizzly Cubs weren’t able to stop the Olympians in the fifth set. Leading 4-3, East stretched the lead to 12-3 with 6-foot-4 middle hitter Gabby Dean at the service line. The Olympians closed it out with an ace from Addison Emery on match point.
“I think we just needed to make some changes and actually do things better, and I think we did that well, and we just had the momentum to finish it,” Dean said.
“We knew that we weren’t going to work that hard just to come back and lose,” senior outside hitter Cline added. “We were going to fight all the way to the end and win.”
Dean recorded 20 kills, three solo blocks and two aces and Williams had 52 assists, 16 digs and two aces to lead East. Foster and Chloe Gilley each served two aces.
Also for the Olympians, Jenna Guse pounded 17 kills, Cline added 14 kills and 13 digs and Caroline Frost contributed 13 kills. Williams notched 16 digs.
“Our team was really deep last year, and we lost a lot of people this year, so I don’t think a lot of people were expecting us to win another sectional, so I’m really proud of us proving people wrong,” Foster said.
“It’s what we worked for all season,” Dean added. “We want to continue to get better from this point. But it was really special that we were able to play here and get a win here.”
The Olympians advanced to the final with a 25-16, 25-14, 25-8 win against Shelbyville in the afternoon. Williams led East with 35 assists and two aces, while Cline pounded 13 kills, Frost had three solo and two assist blocks and Foster notched 10 digs. Dean added 11 kills and one solo and two assist blocks.
“We didn’t want to look past Shelbyville, but we knew that we had beat them earlier in the season, so we kind of hoped that would be the result again,” McIntosh said. “We came in, and we did what we needed to do on our side of the net to make sure we could play in the evening.”
