Menu
Front row adjustments paves Northview's way to sweep of Linton
Coming off a seven-day break between games, which marked the longest stretch of the season so far, Northview’s volleyball team returned to action Thursday night against visiting Linton.
The Miners, who were down by several points early on, came back and grabbed a hold of the lead midway through the first set, forcing Northview head coach Scott McDonald to call a rare timeout.
His message only contained a few words, but the tone in McDonald’s voice told his team everything they needed to know about how he was feeling.
“It was a message that was short, loud and sweet,” McDonald. “We were relaxing and acting like we were just going to roll them because we’d beaten them earlier in the year. So, for us to sit there and watch a little campfire, that wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t ok. We got that cleaned up.”
Northview responded by winning the first set and continuously got back into the groove that led the Lady Knights to 12 wins entering the matchup with Linton. The final result was a 3-0 sweep to extend their winning streak to five games.
“We gave a lot of points up during that first set, but we made some adjustments with our block and as the match progressed, we started getting touch after touch. You could see some of their best players getting frustrated and thinking, ‘Gosh, dang it. They got another one.’ Just by getting touches, we were able to get into our system and get it going … That was a good match for us and a good win,” said McDonald.
To get there, Northview leaned upon senior outside hitter Keira Lucas, specifically in the second set where she racked up nine kills and one block to pave the way to a 25-19 win.
McDonald said Lucas’ game-changing ability spurred on the rest of the front row – Rachel Rounds, Karsyn Buck, Alex Strahla, Addy Murphy, Kaylee Krause and Tori DeHart – to make big plays in big moments at the net, which resulted in the Knights wearing down the Miners as the night progressed.
“She can erase a lot of things. She can cover up a bad pass or cover up a bad set just by being who she is,” said McDonald of Lucas. “Karsyn is the same way. Alex is coming into that as well. Kaylee Krause was phenomenal tonight at the net and Addy and Tori were both great with their blocking. I thought we played some good volleyball in the second and third sets and started wearing them down a little bit and frustrating them a little bit.”
Northview rolled in the third set to put the finishing touches on the team’s ninth sweep of the year. The win over Linton – the second of the season – stacked another impressive performance onto Northview’s running list of them as the Knights, ranked as the Class 3A No. 4 team by Indiana Prep Volleyball, have now beaten nine teams ranked in the top 40 – Class 4A No. 19 Fishers, Class 4A No. 21 Plainfield, Class 4A No. 33 Terre Haute North, Class 4A No. 36 Bloomington South, Class 3A No. 5 Danville, Class 3A No. 7 Brebeuf, Class 3A No. 10 Evansville Memorial, Class 2A No. 15 Parke Heritage and Class 2A No. 27 Linton – of the site’s z-rating, which is a formula that ‘takes into account each team's wins and losses as well as the win-loss records of each team's opponents and each team's opponents' opponents.’
McDonald said with the Western Indiana Conference not being quite as strong as it has been in the past, playing well against teams like Linton is vital in their quest to make improvements before the postseason rolls around in about a month, making Thursday’s win one the longtime head coach was proud to see his group earn.
“Linton’s record [7-8 after Thursday’s loss to Northview] may not be as strong, but they play good teams and are really big. So, with the conference being what it is this year, we’ve got to get better in games like this,” said McDonald. “I thought this was a defining win against a team that beat us in five last year.”