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Northview clinches share of conference title on Senior Night
Northview’s volleyball team enters each year with a list of goals it would like to accomplish throughout the regular season and then into the postseason.
And with Monday’s 3-0 sweep over Owen Valley on Senior Night, the Lady Knights checked off two more.
Surpass the 20-win threshold? Check.
Go undefeated at home? Check.
Become Western Indiana Conference champions again? Check.
There’s more to do, said Northview coach Scott McDonald. But he’s overjoyed with the way things have gone with two matches left to go in the regular season.
“Three goals down with plenty more to go,” said McDonald. “We felt like we were pretty dominant tonight. We pretty much controlled everything from start to finish.”
Before the Knights could clinch at least a share of the conference championship, which can be won outright with a win over West Vigo next week, the program honored their five seniors – Brynlee Clarke, Keira Lucas, Bradee McDonald, Morgan Oellig and Rachel Rounds – that not only possess a .758 winning percentage (97-31 record after Monday’s win over Owen Valley) during their four-year careers but helped flip the culture of the team on the first day they walked in as freshmen.
McDonald wanted to give them the chance to play the entire first set alongside each other, as well as junior Karsyn Buck who has the most experience among the non-seniors, as a way to thank them for everything they’ve contributed.
“This senior class got us back on track. They changed the culture. They had high expectations, and this class has exceeded them,” said McDonald. “So, seeing the culmination of their careers and getting to celebrate that tonight, it was very special. I think the fact that we had an excellent crowd was kind of a tribute to what they’ve done as class and what they’ve meant to Northview volleyball as well as the school.”
Northview won the first and second sets by dominating scores of 25-11 and 25-10 before capping it off with a 25-9 third-set victory to complete the sweep of the Patriots. And during the final five points, McDonald substituted each senior out one at a time, beginning with Clarke and Oellig and Rounds and then McDonald and Lucas, who have been teammates for nearly a decade, alongside each other.
“You do all of those things in practice and develop relationships, so we thought it was the right thing to do to take them out one at a time,” McDonald said. “We had Keira and Bradee come off together because they’ve been playing together since they were 10-years old. That was a really special moment for me as well as both families. It was really neat.”
With the calendar flipping to October on Tuesday, and the sectional pairing show airing on Sunday evening, the Lady Knights will soon begin turning their attention to the postseason. McDonald said they’ll start preparations in the coming days for what they hope is another deep run through the state tournament.
“We’ll start amping it up soon,” said McDonald. “We have Terre Haute South on Thursday, which is a really tough test for us, and then the draw on Sunday. After that, we’ll start getting the film ready. Now is when it gets real.”