INDIANAPOLIS — A three-game streak of sweeps to end the regular season, turned into a four-game streak on Thursday night for Eastern Hancock.
The Royals (23-6) kept their streak of perfection alive with a 25-6, 25-13, 25-8 sweep of Irvington Prep (12-12) in the quarterfinals of IHSAA Class 2A Sectional 43 at Scecina Memorial High School.
“Tonight, we were just focused on getting through with no injuries and getting ready to go for Saturday,” Eastern Hancock head coach Cory Rainbolt said. “It’s very hard to get geared up, and then the match before us goes five sets. I think I sent the girls back to warm up five different times.”
The win moves the Royals onto Saturday’s semifinal against a team they played at the end of September in the Eastern Hancock Invitational, Heritage Christian. Eastern won the regular season matchup 2-1, but every set came down to the wire. The first set went to the Royals 25-22, the second set went to the Eagles 36-34 and the final set was won by Eastern 15-13.
Heritage Christian defeated Triton Central in five sets on Thursday prior to the Eastern Hancock game.
“It’s going to be a great match and a fun one to watch. On paper, I don’t think you can have two teams matchup any closer. We’re ready to go, and the girls have been waiting. It’s hard playing the Thursday night game because you’re preparing, preparing, preparing, and then everything is all in a row,” Rainbolt said. “I think we learned a few things that could work to our advantage, so that’s a benefit. We have one practice to get ready, and we’ve been watching some film on them already, but we didn’t know who was going to win between them and Triton.”
To set up the rematch with Heritage Christian, the Royals were dominant on Thursday and had their foot on the gas from the start.
The first 16 points of the night went to Eastern Hancock, and after the Royals took control of the serve following the first point, senior Ellie Meyer held it for 15 straight points.
She had seven aces over the stretch, including three straight on points three, four and five.
Multiple Royals had kills before three aces by Alana Eastridge forced set-point which Meyer won on her first kill of the set.
The dominance continued into Set 2, with the Royals taking the first four points on two more Eastridge aces and kills by Cami Knight and Hayden Collins.
The lead grew to 14-4 and later 18-6 before Eastern closed out the 25-13 win.
Meyer had two kills and a block in the set, Knight had a pair of kills and an ace, Collins had two kills, and Kaitlyn Lowes had three kills and an ace.
“We’ve been working on some shots in practice, and to be able to translate those into a match, tonight was perfect for that,” Rainbolt said. “We’ve been working on things that we wanted to do, and tonight we did some of those things, and others we didn’t do which is okay.”
While the Royals won Set 3 easily, Irvington Prep opened things with an ace for their first lead of the night.
The teams traded points until the Royals went ahead 3-2 and held the lead for good.
A Lowes kill and Collins ace pushed the lead to 6-2 and from there it grew to 12-4 and later 20-8.
An ace by Briar Vancamp and a few Irvington Prep errors set up Josie Hunt for the kill to close out the win.
The Royals and Heritage Christian will play the second semifinal game on Saturday, scheduled for 12 p.m.
