GREENFIELD — When one of the top-ranked teams in the state ends your six-game winning streak and gives you your first conference loss, you learn what you can from it and move on quickly.
That’s exactly what Mt. Vernon did.
After falling to No. 2 ranked Yorktown last Thursday, the Marauders volleyball team responded in a big way to get back on track, defeating Greenfield-Central on the road 3-1.
The win moved the Marauders to 11-4 on the season and 3-1 in the Hoosier Heritage Conference. The Cougars dropped to 10-6 and 1-3 in the conference.
“Conference wins are always good wins to get,” Mt. Vernon head coach Samantha Grider said. “We were on a six-game win streak before the Yorktown loss, so it’s a great bounce-back win for us too.”
As they’ve done much of the season, the Marauders came out on fire to start the match.
A pair of Olivia Johnson kills and Greenfield-Central attack errors helped Mt. Vernon jump out to an 8-1 lead, and from there they coasted.
The lead grew to 18-8 before the Marauders eventually closed things out 25-10. Five of the final six points went to Mt. Vernon on two Jaycee Jones kills and a Sierra Holverson kill and ace before Johnson closed things out with another kill.
“It’s always really important to get that first set, and that’s something we’ve been doing a really good job of this year,” Grider said. “It’s the finishing and closing out the match that has been our problem.”
Six of the first nine points scored by the Marauders came on Greenfield-Central errors, and in the set, they got nine points off of G-C unforced mistakes.
“A lot of it was just hitting errors and not protecting the middle. We’ve really been trying to work on in practice placing the ball and being smart with our hits. It’s something we’ve been struggling with all season. Harper [Holden] has been doing an amazing job of limiting her errors, but we can’t just have one hitter that we rely on to get every ball,” Greenfield-Central head coach Candice Wyatt said.
“The biggest thing we did was make the same mistake more than once. We kept pushing it too far left on our outside swings and we weren’t covering the middle of the court very well. It’s one thing if it happens once and then we pick it up, but when we’re doing it over and over, that’s one of our biggest issues.”
The Cougars answered with a big win in Set 2, but just couldn’t string enough good stretches together to take more than that set.
In their winning set, the Cougars fell behind late 18-15 but stormed back for a 25-22 win. Outside hitter Alex Muegge tied things up at 19 with a kill and a Holden block pushed G-C in front late.
The teams traded points until a pair of Mt. Vernon errors and a Madison Sonsini block closed things out.
“We got some momentum and were able to get on some runs, and we were able to limit them from getting a big lead,” Wyatt said. “Even though there were some lead changes, we stayed with them the whole time rather than letting them get up seven or eight points.”
The Marauders controlled the majority of the next two sets, but something Grider alluded to was front and center. In both sets, late leads nearly slipped away.
In the third set, up 22-14, the Marauders allowed the Cougars to take seven of the next nine points before an Alivia Morgan kill ended the comeback threat, and in the match-clinching set, the Cougars nearly stormed back from down 24-18 before a Holverson kill stymied that attempt.
“It wasn’t great again tonight, Grider said of her team’s ability to put a full game together. “We talked in the locker room that when you come out and beat a team 25-10, you just can’t lose the next set.”
Led by a strong attack, the Marauders took Set 3 25-21 and Set 4 25-23.
Morgan had seven kills and a block over the final two sets, Holverson had 12 kills, and Johnson had five kills and a block.
On the night, Holverson unofficially had a team-high 17 kills, while Johnson had 11.
“It’s extremely tough to defend. They’ve got good outsides and good middles,” Wyatt said. “When you play teams with just one power hitter, it’s a little easier to narrow your focus, but tonight we kind of had to be ready for everything. They’re just strong on the attack and our block wasn’t there tonight.”
The Cougars were led on the attack by Muegge and Holden who each unofficially had nine kills, while outside hitter Rilee Roland had eight.
Mt. Vernon hosts New Castle on Thursday, while Greenfield-Central travels to Shelbyville.
