PREP ROUNDUP: Wilson begins state title defense with victory

Monday, August 27, 2018
Emma Wilson won the Dave Bannon Invitational on Saturday at Shelbyville.
Banner Graphic file photo/JOEY BENNETT

SHELBYVILLE — Greencastle’s Emma Wilson finally got off to defending her high school cross country state championship on Saturday, after a meet the previous week was cancelled due to weather.

Wilson placed first with a time of 18:19.54 in the Dave Bannon Invitational, which was hosted at Shelbyville by Franklin Central.

“Nerves were high and incoming weather led to the meet being started earlier than scheduled,” GHS coach Craig Jordan said. “Nonetheless, the girls went out and gained valuable experience that will help out tremendously in the upcoming weeks. I’m very excited to see how they will all progress as we’ve got a great group of girls that enjoy working together as a pack.”

Senior Mika Mozawa ran a 25:15.20, followed by freshman Ella Thomas in 26:13.34, freshman Olivia Headley in 26:24.07, freshman Audrie Brennan in 26:39.88, freshman Dale Thomas in 29:38.99 and sophomore Allison Fajt in 30:20.38.

The Tiger Cubs will compete on Saturday in the Terre Haute Savings Bank Invitational at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course.

Volleyball

Cubs third at Brown County — Greencastle lost 2-1 to host Brown County on Saturday in the Brown County invitational, then defeated Edinburgh 2-0 and Bedford North Lawrence 2-1 to finish in third place.

Match-by-match results:

Brown County — The Cub offense was led by Lilly Meyer with six kills. Jada Amis and Allison Stevens both added five kills. Jalyn Duff had 12 assists, and Anna Zellers added eight assists. Defensively, Mckenzie Woodall and Lilly Meyer both had eight digs.

Edinburgh — The Cubs‘ offense was led by Allison Stevens and Lilly Meyer each with four kills. Jalyn Duff and Anna Zellers both had four assists. Mckenzie Woodall led the defense with five digs.

Bedford North Lawrence — The Cubs were down 11-14 in the third set but were able to fight back and take the final set 16-14. Allison Stevens led the team with 13 kills, and Jada Amis added eight. Jalyn Duff did a nice job of forcing the middle in the offense and ended with 19 assists. “The team’s defense did a nice job of slowing Lawrence’s hitters down,” GHS coach Maggie Walters said. Jalyn Duff and Lilly Meyer both had nine digs, and Mckenzie Woodall and Carmen Bridges both added six digs.

In other volleyball:

Clovers win pair at Scottsburg — Cloverdale split four matches on Saturday in the Scottsburg Invitational.

The Clovers lost to Evansville North 19-25, 15-25 for their first defeat of the season. They lost their second match to Jasper 25-18, 15-25, 11-15 before bouncing back to beat the host team Scottsburg 25-10, 25-23.

The Clovers closed out the day by defeating Hauser 19-25, 25-19, 15-13

“We started the day rather lethargically,” Clover coach Sam Jones said. “Evansville North was much bigger than we were across the front, and I’m not sure if that intimidated us or if we just didn’t handle their pressure well but we couldn’t ever seem to get a run going.”

Jones thought that match was his team’s “worst” of the day, and the Clovers got better as the day progressed.

“Jasper is a really tough 4A team with some impressive results on their resume already,” he said. “We outworked them in the first set and due to some lengthy scoring runs from the service line we were able to take the first set. The second set the Wildcats hit another speed that we haven’t faced yet.

“We looked overmatched at times but I also thought while we were outmatched, we fought hard and didn’t just roll over,” Jones added. “Playing Jasper and Evansville North set us up to handle Scottsburg’s pace.”

Jones said the Scottsburg match was closer to the volleyball his team had played throughout the season.

“The first set we were really tough-minded defensively and put some balls away across the net,” he said.

Jones considers the final match with Hauser as his “proudest” moment of the day.

“We didn’t necessarily play our greatest in the first set, but bounced back in the second set to find a way to get to a third,” he noted. “They were the 1A state runnerup last year and they know how to win. In the third set, we were down 5-0 and 12-7 before scoring eight of the next nine points to win the match. “

Jones thought his team played aggressively all day.

“We had girls flying around and laying out for balls to keep things in play,” he said. “I love that our girls take it personally when a ball hits the floor and are willing to make adjustments and come back to fight that much harder to get the next opportunity.”

Jones added that the Scottsburg head basketball coach gave some compliments to his team after the match.

“He talked about how much he loved watching our girls play because they played hard, they had fun, and they left it all out on the floor for each other,” Jones said. “I talk to our girls all the time about how we cannot be outworked. If we put in the work and commit to being scrappy, we find a way to win matches.”

Cloverdale 3, Bloomfield 0 — Cloverdale volleyball didn’t have a letdown match after a solid weekend and left Greene County with a victory on Monday night.

The Clovers used a spread out attack and some tough defense to defeat the Cardinals 25-12, 25-22, 25-17.

“The girls in green really started strongly with a wall of blocks, some tenacious defense, and quality swings from our front row,” coach Sam Jones said. “I was worried going into the match how we would handle a tough Bloomfield team after we ended Saturday on a high note with a comeback victory over Hauser.”

Jones had wondered if his team would lose its focus.

“They proved me wrong in the first set as we really increased the tempo with great serve-receive and our hitters putting the ball away, he said. “I thought we did a nice job of moving the ball around when we were out of system. There were some times that Kayla [Perdue], Kenzie [Stoltz] and Kassie [Wade] were able to score when we weren’t in the best positions because of their constant attack.”

The Clovers got ahead early in the second set.

“Bloomfield made some adjustments and its passing steadied,” Jones noted. “They have two or three girls who can really put the ball away and if you give them a free ball, their setter knows where to go. We were up early and they clawed back to 22-22 but I trust our girls in pressure situations can get the job done.”

Jones does not want his defense to be overlooked.

“Our defensive specialists are continuing to do a great job keeping us in the match,” he said. “Autumn [Lewellen], Morgan [Goss] and Kaya [Daub} have all been playing great defense with making reads and being athletes.”

Stats:

Kills — Combs 16, Stoltz 11, Wade 5, Perdue 4, Smith 2

Points — Daub 10, Rady 9, Combs 8, Thomas 5

Blocks — Combs 8, Stoltz 1.5, Wade 1.5

Digs — Thomas 15, Daub 10, Stoltz 6

Assists — Rady 36

Soccer

Greencastle 4, Crawfordsville 0 (girls) — Tiger Cub goalkeeper Claire Gillen had nine saves in recording the shutout.

Goals were scored by Kennedy Trigg (2), Erin Thomas (1) and Lauren Elam (1).

Assists were earned by Thomas (1) and Catherine Weeks (1).

“The team played strongly and began to garner more positive communication and solid passing,” GHS coach Angie Weeks said.

The Tiger Cubs won the junior varsity match 3-0.

Goal keeper Ashlynn Guyer led the defensive squad. Goals were scored by Trigg (2), Abbie Beauchamp (1) and Sydney Anderson (1). Trigg had two assists.