Karen Dutro
Columbus North’s traditional volleyball season openers against Seymour haven’t gone so well for the Bull Dogs in the recent past.
The Bull Dogs put an end to that trend Tuesday night. They posted a 25-22, 25-19, 25-21 sweep for their first win against the Owls since 2017 and give Sarah Stair a win in her North coaching debut.
“It’s so nice,” senior middle hitter Karen Dutro said. “We haven’t been able to do it the past three years, so it really feels great starting with that momentum.”
After leading the entire first set, North had to come from behind in the second and third sets. The Bull Dogs trailed 9-4 in the second set before pulling even with Dutro at the service line. Then, leading 17-15, Dutro’s serving extended the margin to 22-15, and North was able to close out the set.
North fell behind 8-3 in the third set before Rori Pollert brought them back to within 8-7 from the service line. The Owls still led 20-19 before the Bull Dogs scored six of the final seven points.
“We started off the second and third sets a little rough,” Stair said. “I called a timeout and reminded them that we’re playing with 100 percent focus and 100 percent effort, and they were able to pretty quickly pull it back in.”
Morgan Osborn
Dutro recorded 11 kills and one solo and five assist blocks, and senior libero Morgan Osborn had 14 digs and three aces to lead North. Junior setter Lexi Denny had 31 assists.
“We had some hiccups at the beginning of every set, but we ended up pushing through and getting the win,” Osborn said.
“It was super exciting,” Dutro added. “We had a really strong start, and we had a really competitive game. The second and third sets, we kind of faltered at the beginning, but we fought back, hard and I thought it just showed a lot of resilience from our team, especially so early in the season.”
Elaina Penrod tallied nine kills and one solo and one assist block, Sydney Ousley had seven kills and one solo block and Tania Maldonado added seven kills and two assist blocks. Denny notched 10 digs, Pollert posted nine digs and one ace, Hannah Perry served two aces and Kyndal Wheeler added seen digs and one ace.
“We had a ton of really great digs, a lot of great kills, several good blocks, great serves,” Stair said. “That’s one of the things I focus on, is aggressive and accurate serving, and they definitely did that really well tonight.”
While the Bull Dogs were playing their season opener, Seymour was coming off a sweep of Jeffersonville in its opener Saturday.
“It’s really cool because we haven’t beat them since (2017),” Osborn said. “So pulling this win off is a good confidence booster for all of us.”
“I am incredibly proud of them,” Stair added. “I could not be more proud of how hard they’ve been working all these months and being able to pull off this really definitive win in our first home match.”
