Greenfield-Central’s Alex Muegge, left, and Madison Sonsini, right, shown here from Tuesday’s first-round sectional match against Anderson, combined, unofficially, for 17 kills in Saturday’s championship match against No. 2 Yorktown.
Tom Russo | Daily Reporter
PENDLETON — Greenfield-Central had moments. Yorktown (30-2) had longevity.
The Cougars volleyball team’s season came to an end in Saturday’s championship match of the Pendleton Heights Sectional with a 3-0 loss to No. 2 Yorktown, winners of five straight sectional championships.
Greenfield-Central (22-10) battled back from a nine-point first-set deficit to cut it to three, but the perennial Class 4A powerhouse Tigers were more convincing at the end of the opener and in the final two sets to claim the victory by set scores of 25-17 25-10, 25-14.
“I was really hoping after the first set when we came out pretty aggressively — and also surprised ourselves a little bit on how much we could keep with them point-for-point — we could carry that over to the second set, but it’s hard once they get on those runs and get big leads,” Greenfield-Central coach Candice Wyatt said. “Even in their rotations where they are not as strong, it’s still hard, especially when you make mistakes on our side of the court.”
In the opening set, trailing 13-4, Greenfield-Central rallied to cut Yorktown’s lead to 17-14.
Seven of the 10 Cougar points came on kills. Senior right side hitter Madison Sonsini recorded three of the finishes and Rilee Roland had two. Alex Muegge’s great placement of an attack cut it 17-12, a Tiger attack error followed and led to a Yorktown timeout. A Sonsini kill cut it to 17-14, but Yorktown was able to find a way to pull away during the final points.
Yorktown’s Indiana University-bound outside hitter Charlotte Vinson had seven first-set kills, including two of the final four Tiger points.
For the Cougars, the second set started off strong. Muegge had a pair of kills and Sonsini had one for a 3-3 tie, but the Tigers took control the remainder of the set, which included a 10-o run to extend a lead to 21-7.
Again, Vinson was a big contributor during the stretch. She had seven more kills in the second set, including five and a block during the 10-0 spurt.
“It’s hard to stop,” Wyatt said of Vinson and the Tigers attack. “We’re trying to figure out how many blockers do we put on her, how many girls we put in defense. … It’s a cooperative effort and they all have to step in and do their job.
“It’s a very quick (attack) and they have other hitters they can go to. … Even if we’re on and I say, ‘just block her, just focus on her,’ but she gets up really high and can swing over our block. She can swing around the block too and has so many shots in her tool box. If one shot’s not working … she’s very good at mixing up her shots, making it powerful, making it quick, hitting it where we’re not basically.”
Yorktown got out to a quick 7-1 lead in the third. Vinson had a pair of service aces and a kill to get the Tigers off to a 5-0 lead. Lili Jeffries and Sonsini combined for a block to get the Cougars on the board, but it wasn’t long after that Yorktown had a double-figure lead at 15-5.
Vinson had 18 kills for the match. Sonsini led G-C with nine, Muegge had eight and Roland added six..
Vinson had plenty of support. Senior middle Shanese Williams had 13 kills. Senior outside hitter Ariane Wright had nine and Claire Hazen recorded six.
Wyatt thought her team played much better than in their regular season meeting, a 3-0 Yorktown sweep by set scores of 25-14, 25-16, 25-9 on Sept. 25 in Greenfield.
“I think we did better this game than the first time we saw them,” Wyatt said. “We tried to make them earn it. If they’re going to get a point we wanted it to be on a hard kill versus an easy tip to the middle of the court that we’re not picking up. I’m glad we played a little stronger defense this time, especially in the first set. I wish we could have come out with a win, but I think this is the best I’ve seen our team compete against Yorktown since I’ve been coach. They’re a state-ranked team and have D-I volleyball commits on their team. It’s really hard to beat them but we did the best we could.”
It was the final game for Greenfield-Central’s five seniors, Sonsini, Roland, Jeffries, middle hitter Harper Holden and setter Makenna Rankins, all starters.
Since 2013, the Cougars have had 10 seasons of 18 wins or more, but this is the first time during that stretch they’ve had back-to-back 20-win seasons. The 2023 squad, in Wyatt’s first season as head coach, went 22-8. The 2018 and 2013 teams each won 23 matches.
“Our record was pretty awesome,” Wyatt said. “Last year, having some really good seniors we went [22-8] and this year we went 22-10. Even though we lost those seniors and lost a couple of those games that we didn’t lose last year, overall I’d say they were very successful and the seniors, every single one of them, contributed heavily to that.”
