Sydney Ousley
Coming off a Conference Indiana win 24 hours earlier and facing a 2-12 Scottsburg volleyball team Wednesday night, Columbus North had to be wary of a letdown.
Although the Bull Dogs weren’t as sharp as they have been during their previous three matches in their now-four-match win streak, the energy was there from start to finish. That enabled them to claim a 25-14, 25-17, 25-16 victory.
“We talked about that even before the game, to work on playing to our potential,” North coach Sarah Stair said. “I don’t think that we played to our potential tonight, but just making sure that we are ready to go, regardless of who is on the other side of the net, and that is one of the things that we focused on in our huddle after the match.”
The Bull Dogs (10-6) led the entire first set. The second set was tied at 11 before they pulled away. Senior Hannah Perry finished off both sets at the serving line.
In the third set, Stair was able to get all of her full-time varsity players onto the court. Senior Clara Balzano served the final three points.
Karen Dutro recorded 10 kills and five solo blocks, and fellow senior Morgan Osborn had 19 digs and three aces to lead North. Lexi Denny tallied 26 assists.
“That’s definitely something we’ve talked about, having the same mindset and aggression in every single game, so I think it actually helps us having different types of opponents back-to-back,” Dutro said. “It helps us continue to play the same way even though we’re getting challenged in different ways. We did a good job of keeping up the pace and continuing to play aggressively, even though it was a different pace that we what we were used to. So I think we did a really good job of playing the way we should play to go into Saturday.”
Senior Sydney Ousley posted seven kills and one assist block, Tania Maldonado pounded seven kills and Elaina Penrod contributed five kills. Osborn and Balzano each had three assists, Rori Pollert notched 10 digs, Kyndal Wheeler added five digs, and Dutro, Denny and Perry all served two aces.
“We weren’t expecting that much competition, so we just kind of tried to show out and play our game,” Ousley said. “Definitely, this helped raise our spirits a little bit coming into this next game. We’re real excited for our next conference game on Saturday (at Terre Haute North) and our upcoming games next week.”
Sophomore Sydni Schiefer, who missed the first 15 matches of the season with an injury, saw her first action Wednesday and had three kills and a dig.
“It was great to have her back, as well,” Stair said. “It’s good to have a little bit more depth.”
