Columbus East’s Erin Williams, left, and Gabby Dean go up for a block during Saturday’s regional semifinal against Castle at Bloomington North.
Chris Williams | For The Republic
By Ken Severson
For The Republic
BLOOMINGTON — The dance ended for the Cinderella Columbus East volleyball team Saturday afternoon.
After a valiant try, the glass slipper was shattered by powerful Castle in three straight sets at the Class 4A Bloomington North Regional semifinal.
The Knights (32-4) fought off the sectional champion Olympians 25-20, 25-16, 25-15.
East coach Ellyn McIntosh was rather matter of fact when she summed up the match.
“We just didn’t play very well,” McIntosh said. “Credit to Castle. They kept balls up, they kept blocking us. They were everywhere we weren’t.”
The Knights certainly were everywhere and made sure the Olympians (20-13) knew about it from the beginning.
In the first set, Castle jumped out to a 5-0 lead that East could not recover from despite closing the gap to 7-5. The Knights then went on a small run and gradually built up a comfortable lead that not even two timeouts called by McIntosh could help.
The Olympians kept the second set close for a while, tying it seven times and even taking the lead briefly before the Knights got back to business, running off seven straight to take an 18-10 lead. A timeout by McIntosh seemed to settle East down, but only briefly as Castle kept enough of a margin to win set two.
The Knights ran the score to 8-2 in the third set and kept up the pressure before the Olympians finally succumbed.
Senior Gabby Dean led East with 13 kills and had two assist blocks. Madeline Cline added 11 kills, and Caroline Frost had eight kills. Kenzie Foster and Chloe Gilley each notched 13 digs, while Erin Williams had six digs and 29 assists.
East loses four seniors — Dean, Foster, Cline and Williams.
All cliches aside, it was a Cinderella run for the Olympians, who finished fifth in the rugged Hoosier Hills Conference and at one time, were two games below .500 at 8-10 before winning 12 of their last 15 matches. East knocked off Franklin in the sectional final last week after the teams had split during the regular season.
“That was a good bounce back win for us and I was hoping that would give us a little more momentum,” McIntosh said. “But overall, we’re happy with our season and hopefully build on this for next year.”
