YORKTOWN — Greenfield-Central was getting off to great starts, just not finishing its work.
That changed in the third set, the fourth and fifth set, too.
The Cougars came back from a two-set deficit to defeat Hancock County rival New Palestine 3-2 in a quarterfinal match of Class 4A Yorktown Sectional 9 of the IHSAA Girls Volleyball State Tournament at Yorktown High School Tuesday.
Greenfield-Central (14-16) defeated New Palestine (25-5) by set scores of 19-25, 22-25, 25-23, 25-20, 15-13. The Cougars will play Pendleton Heights (22-10), a 3-0 winner over Muncie Central in Tuesday’s second quarterfinal match, in the first of two semifinal contests at 10 a.m. Saturday at Yorktown High School.
Saturday’s second semifinal, at 11:30 a.m., will be determined by Thursday’s quarterfinal results. Mt. Vernon (11-20) will take on Anderson (1-11) at 6 p.m. Richmond (6-18) plays host and second-ranked Yorktown (28-2) in the second match of the night.
The championship match is scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday.
“We’ve been playing well the last two weeks,” Greenfield-Central coach Jon Vernon said. “We’ve won four in a row, a tournament over the weekend … It just seems right now they’re buying into everything we’re doing. They listen to what we told them to do. They served deep and got (New Palestine) out of system. We got a ton of free balls.”
They got a career night out of junior outside hitter Mya Grigsby, too.
The powerful attacker had a career-best 32 kills and recorded a double-double with 18 digs. Rilee Roland, a sophomore hitter, had a big night with 14 kills and 17 digs.
“We just had a good mindset,” Grigsby said of the come-from-behind win. “We were so excited, pumped and, before hand, we were ready to go and ready to play.
“I think we just kept fighting.”
Greenfield-Central led early in the first set before the Dragons took control for good at 14-13. In the second set, the Cougars scored four of the first five points. There were three ties and three lead changes, but New Palestine was able to finish it off. For the second straight set, senior middle blocker Reagan Kleiman ended the game with a kill.
“The first two sets were a lot of fun and we played with a lot of good team chemistry,” New Palestine coach Kelli Gabehart said. “Our serve and pass games were strong. In the third and fourth set we struggled to block Greenfield’s outsides. Mya was huge for them. With the momentum in the fifth set, it was tough to recover after losing the third and fourth.”
The third set had nine ties, the final one at 23-23. Greenfield-Central scored the final three points, the last on a Grigsby kill to force the fourth set.
Roland helped get the Cougars some third-set momentum. She had a stretch of three consecutive kills to turn an 11-10 lead to 14-10. She had six kills in the set. Grigsby had seven.
“Rilee has struggled some here and there, but I told her tonight might have been her come-out party of being able to score and do some big things for us,” Vernon said. “I thought she did an outstanding job. Her serve receive was unbelievable, the best she’s had all year.”
The fourth set was all G-C. The Cougars jumped out to a 5-1 lead and led as much as seven points, 19-12.
New Palestine could never regain the advantage it had early. Senior setter Isabella Gizzi helped keep the final set close. She had four dump kills in the final set, including two in a row late to cut the G-C fifth-set lead to 14-13.
After a Cougar timeout, setter Makenna Rankins found Grigsby, who had her first attack kept in play. G-C got the ball back and went to Grigsby one more time to finish the match.
“The kids just played really hard and they just didn’t give up,” Vernon added. “They played one set at a time and never gave up.”
Along with Grigsby’s and Roland’s numbers, Rankins had 52 assists. Harper Holden added five blocks.
For New Palestine, Gizzi had 41 assists, 18 digs and seven kills. Kleiman had 22 kills. Libero Honour Mallory had a match-best 20 digs.
“I am very proud of how the girls battled,” Gabehart said. “They never gave up and were mentally tough when we got down. They kept crawling back. They have so much to be proud of and I’m happy with how they represented our school today.”
For the Dragons, it was the final match for three standout seniors, all big contributors for a team that finished second in the Hoosier Heritage Conference. It was the final match for Gizzi, Kleiman and Mallory.
“Our huddle (after the match) was very emotional. We care a lot about each other and our seniors have been huge impact players. Reagan in the middle has been one of our top scorers. Isabella is our setter and Honour libero. Those are three huge positions. They’re kids that are winners. We have big shoes to fill losing those three kids.”
