New Palestine head coach Kelli Gabehart reacts along with her bench during their contest against Greenfield-Central last season. On Thursday, she won her 250th career match in the Dragons sweep of Guerin Catholic.
Tom Russo | Daily Reporter
NEW PALESTINE — The start of the volleyball season could not be going any better for New Palestine.
Four wins, zero losses, and just one dropped set.
The fourth win came Thursday night at home over Guerin Catholic in straight sets, 25-16, 25-17 and 25-15.
Since an opening season 30-28 loss in Set 1 against Scecina, the Dragons have reeled off wins in 12 straight sets. They took the next three from Scecina, swept Connersville in their home opener on Monday and swept Greenwood Christian on Tuesday prior to Thursday’s win.
The victory was head coach Kelli Gabehart’s 250th career win.
“It’s been a lot of fun. The girls are playing really well together,” Gabehart said about the start of the season. “Tonight was a great match because Guerin always brings a ton of energy and they’re much improved from last year. I had a little pregame jitters actually and was wondering how we were going to perform, and we ended up doing a really nice job. So very happy with tonight.”
The Dragons coasted to the straight-set victory, pulling away late in each set for comfortable wins.
In each set, a different player had their moment to shine.
Sophomore middle blocker Caylee Brown had her best set of the season to help New Palestine pull away in the opener.
In a 10-8 game, Brown had three kills and a block over the next five points to push the Dragons lead to 15-8. Her fifth kill of the set made it 23-16, and another block got the Dragons to set point. New Pal took a 1-0 lead after a Guerin Catholic attack error.
Brown, who came into the night averaging 1.7 kills per set, had five kills and two blocks in the opening set.
“We had a huge spark from Caylee in that first set. She played out of her mind,” Gabehart said. “She’s very reserved and that gets all the other girls fired up because they’re so happy for her.”
In Set 2, junior Natalie Sevier and senior Kyndra Monteith provided the fire.
After a Guerin Catholic service error tied it at 17-17, Monteith took over and held serve for the final eight points.
She had three aces over the closing stretch, including points 23 and 24. On the night, she had four aces and a team-high 12 digs.
“That was the huge spark for us in that set,” Gabehart said. “Kyndra was great back there and went on a run for us to be able to close things out.”
When Monteith wasn’t getting points on her serve, Sevier was up front to do the damage.
Over the final eight points, she had two of her four kills in the set and a block. She finished the night with six total kills.
The closing set spark was provided by senior Josie Corbett.
Four of her five kills on the night came in the finale and helped the Dragons keep a safe lead.
Corbett’s kills made it 10-6, 12-8, 13-9 and 14-10 before New Palestine pulled away.
“The last couple of years we have been very balanced on the attack and again we have a lot of people that can score,” Gabehart said.
While those four kickstarted runs, juniors Hayden Ramsey, Azure Flagle and Samantha Gooding did what they typically do all night long.
Ramsey had a team-high 10 kills and three blocks, Gooding had 25 assists and Flagle had 10 digs and an ace.
“I’m just proud of this team’s fight. There’s been some games where we’ve really had to battle and maybe we haven’t played as well as we want to,” Gabehart said. “Tonight, we did play our game, and we played how we wanted to.”
