ROB HUNT
THE HERALD BULLETIN
FRANKTON — After a less than ideal start to the season, Madison-Grant seems to be hitting its stride at the appropriate time for a team entertaining thoughts of regaining the title of Madison County volleyball champions.
The Argylls certainly took care of business in pool play Thursday, sweeping past Liberty Christian and Frankton to earn a top seed for Saturday’s bracket portion of the tournament at Elwood.
M-G (10-5) has won nine of its last 10 matches after a 1-4 start and will face Lapel in the quarterfinal round at 11:15 a.m. Saturday after the Bulldogs split their matches at Pendleton Heights, defeating Anderson and falling to the six-time reigning champion Arabians.
“There’s a lot of spread-out talent this year, so no matter what, you’re going to get stuck with someone (good),” M-G coach Kayla Jump said. “Sometimes, it’s good to play someone that is a decent team
and is going to keep up with your rhythm, so we’re looking forward to it.” The Argylls defeated the Lions 25-10, 25-14 in the middle match before stopping the Eagles 25-15, 25-17 in the finale. Frankton opened the evening with a 25-4, 25-17 win over LC.
But the meeting between Central Indiana Conference rivals was the marquee matchup in this pool, although the Argylls were rarely pushed by Frankton (9-6).
One of the big reasons was the service game. Madison-Grant applied pressure on the Eagles with its serve while stymying the service game of Frankton, one of the home team’s greatest strengths.
“We’ve been working really hard on our serving because serving and passing are the top two things,” Jump said. “You can’t swing unless everything else fits together. I felt like we did a better job today than what we had been doing.”
“I don’t want the whole match to be negative because it wasn’t,” Frankton coach Hannah Thomas said. “But at the end of it, I can’t just have one, two, three or even four trying. It has to be all six. They put service pressure on Madison-Grant libero Reese Box passes the ball with teammate Lia Mezzi looking on during the Argylls match against host Frankton in the Madison County Tourney on Thursday.
us, and we didn’t adjust. We couldn’t adapt.”
In the match, Madison-Grant racked up seven aces compared to zero from the Eagles.
In addition to the strong service game — led by three aces from libero Reese Box — Demie Havens and Camryn Bolser led the M-G attack with 13 kills on the night each while Johnna Hiatt added 10 to go with 16 assists.
“Cam played well yesterday, and Cam played well today,” Jump said. “We talk to Cam about having a little grit and attitude up there, to really finish her play. I don’t think that’s her personality, so she’s trying something a little different and it’s working for her.”
It was a continuation of momentum the Argylls have built up after that slow start and included a Wednesday home win over another CIC rival, Mississinewa.
“I felt like we played well yesterday, and we brought that in to today. We did a lot of learning
yesterday,” Jump said.
It has been an up and down start to her first season as Frankton’s coach for Thomas as the Eagles continue to learn how to play without last year’s dominant trio of Claire Duncan, Holli Klettheimer and Emma Sperry.
It is a learning process that was not going to be completed with a few weeks of practice and matches. Thomas believes it will take much longer than that for her Eagles to learn their identity.
“It’s going to be not even one season but multiple seasons for us to find our identity,” she said. “I don’t think it has to be one or two people leading. It can be all of them. … It doesn’t have to be that domineering player like we had last year.”
Macy Curtis paced the Eagles with 13 kills while Claire Osborne had 23 assists and three aces.
One of the bright spots of the evening for Liberty Christian came when the Lions surged to an 11-10 lead over Frankton in the second set of the opening match, but it was momentum they could not hold.
Serenity Conyers led LC (2-7) with nine kills
while Anna Chappell had 10 assists and an ace.
Frankton will face another CIC rival in Alexandria in the quarterfinals Saturday morning while Liberty Christian will face cross-town rival Anderson in the first-round match that kicks off the day at Elwood at 9 a.m.