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Northview sweeps Edgewood to win third straight sectional title
There wasn’t anything that needed to be said when Northview’s volleyball team boarded the bus that was headed to Speedway High School Saturday morning.
The Lady Knights weren’t going to check out the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They weren’t going to take a peek at the Indianapolis Zoo’s new exhibits either.
Northview was on a business trip.
And by getting past the host Sparkplugs in the Class 3A Speedway Sectional semifinal and then sweeping Edgewood a few hours later in the sectional championship, the Knights accomplished what they set out to do, winning their third straight title.
“We knew exactly what we needed to do to get here and win. But without playing a game in a while, you couldn’t always tell that because we couldn’t finish like we should have, but we somehow found a way to grind it out against Speedway this morning and then controlled things tonight against Edgewood,” said Northview head coach Scott McDonald. “We expected to win when we got here, and that’s what we were able to do.”
In the 3-1 win over Speedway Saturday afternoon, the Knights lost a set for the first time since Aug. 24. It served as a wakeup call that McDonald acknowledged his team, riding a 21-game winning streak entering the title tilt with the Mustangs, needed.
The message that was delivered in the third-set loss to Speedway was received a little later in the evening as Northview came out of the chute in the championship match ready to go. Winning the opening set by a lopsided score of 25-9, the Knights’ pair of standout hitters in Keira Lucas and Karsyn Buck combined to record more kills (12) than Edgewood’s entire point total (9), setting the tone for what was to come the rest of the way.
“We talked before the match about needing to set the tone for the night. We wanted to go out and dominate,” McDonald said.
Northview was pushed by the Mustangs in each of the second and third sets, forcing McDonald to take a rare timeout to let his team know that they needed to remain focused on the goal at hand.
“I thought they took care of things on their own there in the second set but in the third set, we were too sloppy,” said McDonald. “When I called that timeout, I said, ‘They have nothing to lose. They’re fully expecting us to roll them again. You’ve got to be able to finish with the same intensity you had in the first set.’”
It worked as Northview won the final two sets by respective scores of 25-17 and 25-21 to complete the 3-0 sweep and clinch the program’s third straight sectional championship. And in doing so, the Lady Knights surpassed the 30-win mark for the season while the senior class won their 101st game in the last four years, an achievement that McDonald hopes they, as well as the community that’s supported them for so long, doesn’t take for granted.
“I told the kids that you just never know when [you’ll win a sectional championship]. There are plenty of teams at our school that may never win one. But when you look at what these kids have done, especially Keira and Bradee [McDonald] and Morgan [Oellig] and Rachel [Rounds], they won their 100th game today and have had so much success that they can often be taken for granted,” said McDonald. “We’re just glad to see the community appreciates what these kids put themselves through to not only represent their family and their school but also their community.”
Northview (30-1), ranked No. 5 in the post recent Class 3A poll, will advance onto next weekend’s Cascade Regional championship where it will take on No. 1-ranked Roncalli (31-0) at 1 p.m.