Greenfield-Central’s Madison Sonsini celebrates against Eastern Hancock.
Mike Brown | For The Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — It was a close match without a lot of close sets.
Greenfield-Central and Eastern Hancock led for nearly the entirety of the sets they won in Thursday’s girls volleyball match at Greenfield-Central High School, but neither could keep that momentum into the ensuing set.
Greenfield-Central won 3-2 against its Hancock County rivals by set scores of 25-13, 21-25, 25-15, 21-25, 15-12 to improve to 7-1 on the season. Eastern Hancock dropped to 9-3.
The fifth set was the most competitive of the night, though it did not have a lead change.
Greenfield-Central scored the first three points — on kills by Alex Muegge and Harper Holden and an ace by Madison Sonsini — but it was tied 6-6 and was a one-point match at 10-9.
“A lot of it was both teams playing well,” Greenfield-Central coach Candice Wyatt said. “They played really well and did not make it easy for us, except for Sets 1 and 3. A lot of (our success attacking) was just placing it and not getting blocked. They have great blockers so I kept telling them you can’t swing through the block, you’re going to have to place it. Most of our kills came from placing the ball and getting them out of system and getting them off-balance.”
Much of the placing was done by senior middle hitter Harper Holden, who, unofficially, had 18 kills.
While the outside and right side hitters were often swinging away, Holden was able to place many of her attacks in opening areas. She had three kills in the final set, including one to end the longest rally of the night.
Greenfield-Central had just taken a 12-9 lead after an apparent Eastern Hancock kill was ruled an attack error. Holden found the right spot to put her Cougars up four, 13-9. Muegge wrapped up the match with a kill five points later.
“I think the power swing is definitely a good tool to have but on a team as competitive as Eastern it’s smart to use an off-tempo like a tip or a roll, especially into the open holes on the court,” Holden said. “Every opportunity we had to swing if we can put a fastball in the air to someone who’s up, by all means, swing away, but I think it’s more important to be able to be versatile.”
“She was one of our star hitters tonight,” Wyatt said of Holden. “She’s very smart with the ball and knows when she has a big block and knows when she needs to tip over it and when she has an open net and can swing hard. She’s definitely more balanced in mixing up her shots.”
G-C scored the first point of the match. Eastern tied it 1-1 and the Cougars led the rest of the way for a first-set victory. Muegge, Holden and Sonsini had four kills each in the set.
Eastern Hancock broke a 4-4 second-set tie with five straight points, three coming on service aces from Cami Knight and led the rest of the way for a 25-21 victory.
The Cougars did not trail at all after scoring the first three points of Set 3.
A Rilee Roland kill to give the Cougars an 11-4 lead was the 2,000th career assist for senior setter Makenna Rankins.
“I’m so happy for her to get her 2,000th assist and do it on the home court,” Wyatt said.
“It means a lot,” Rankins, who was a defensive specialist before becoming a setter her sophomore season, said. “I didn’t set my freshman year so to build up, teach myself, and have coaches teach me how to set, it means a lot.”
The fourth set actually had a lead change that didn’t happen in the first couple of points.
Eastern Hancock led early before a Roland kill tied it 9-9 and a Holden block gave the Cougars a 10-9 advantage.
Eastern followed with the next four points and led the rest of the set. Five-foot, 4-inch outside hitter Hayden Collins got a kill to tie it. Frosh outside hitter Josie Hunt gave the Royals the lead. Meyer followed with a block and Hunt added a kill for a 13-10 advantage.
The Cougars scored the first three points of the fifth set before the Royals fought back to tie it 6-6, but a service error and two attack errors put G-C back in control 9-6.
Eastern Hancock coach Cory Rainbolt was disappointed in the final outcome, but feels her club took away a lot of positives against their large-school, county rivals.
“I told the girls I’m not upset with how we played,” Rainbolt said. “We grew tenfold as a team. We’ve been really stressing on being relentless on defense and we finally got that figured out. It’s only up for us from here, we’re super-excited. Greenfield has a good team and you have to give credit where credit is due but I think we had them scared. I’m OK with that. We had really big goals coming in. We didn’t get the win, but we got a lot more out of this game than what the scoreboard shows.”
Along with Holden’s 18 kills, Roland finished with 19, including seven in the third set. Sonsini had 12 and Muegge finished with 11. Lowes had 17 for Eastern Hancock. Meyer had nine and was part of five blocks and had three service aces.
Holden and 6-2 middle hitter Lili Jeffries were each part of five blocks for the Cougars. Sonsini was part of four. Muegge had three aces.
Greenfield-Central returns to action Tuesday at Delta in its first Hoosier Heritage Conference match of the season. Eastern Hancock, 1-0 in the Mid-Eastern Conference, returns to conference play next week with a home match Tuesday against Shenandoah.
