Part of what enables elite athletes to make their respective sports look so easy is the years of hard work they put in when nobody’s watching.
Center Grove junior setter Madison Hammill has been around volleyball courts virtually her whole life. Her mother, Julie, played at Clemson and her older sister Taylor is now at Middle Tennessee. So if the game looks like it’s automatic to her now, that’s probably because it pretty much is.
"I definitely think it’s probably from all the years of just being in the gym day in and day out," Hammill said of the apparent effortlessness in her game. "It just becomes muscle memory at this point."
Hammill will be relying on a lifetime of preparation as she leads the Trojans into the Class 4A Bloomington North Regional on Saturday. Center Grove opens with a 10 a.m. semifinal match against No. 2 Providence — the team that knocked the Trojans out in a regional final last year.
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First-year Center Grove coach Chris Due wasn’t with the Trojans for that match, but he says that revenge has been among the motivating factors for his team.
"The girls have been talking a lot about last year," he said. "Just those memories they’ve shared last year about losing that regional final match, and how they wanted to get back to this point so they can have a second chance at Providence."
That chance has arrived, and while the Trojans’ offense looks a lot more balanced than it did last year — six different players have between 113 and 232 kills — the same straw is stirring the drink.
Due says that with many of his previous teams, he had to always be on top of his setters, guiding them through the process of running the offense and what to look for in a given situation.
That hasn’t been the case with Hammill.
"With MJ, I don’t have to do that at all," Due said. "I trust the way she runs the offense. She does a tremendous job of recognizing some of the holes that are on the other side, recognizing the blockers and exposing weaknesses. And also, she realizes what our strengths are, and she really tries to utilize those strengths."
It is perhaps the University of Wisconsin recruit’s desire to get the most out of her teammates that helps make her efforts appear so effortless.
"I really can’t focus on my job that much because I have to be bettering the ball for every single other person," Hammill explained. "So I think a lot of it is not worrying about how I’m playing, but instead worrying about how we can win."
That formula has worked out well so far — the Trojans are 28-6 this season and 85-22 in Hammill’s three seasons. Just four more victories over the next three weekends, and Center Grove will have its first state title since 2000.
The roadblocks in the way are substantial, but Hammill feels good about her team’s chances.
"It’s real now, and we definitely have the potential to make it all the way," she said.
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Class 4A Bloomington North Regional
Saturday
Providence vs. Center Grove, 10 a.m.
Bloomington South vs. Castle, noon
Championship, 7 p.m.
Admission: $7 per session, $10 full day
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Players to watch: Bloomington South — Lucy Anderson, Kenadee Coyle, Bailey DeMier, Bria Ooley; Castle — Carly Harpenau, Hannah Rae Kivett, Mikele Niehaus, Jessica Nunge; Center Grove — Grace Boggess, Ashley Eck, Madison Hammill, Calista Stafford; Providence — Lilly Bivens, Ali Hornung, Hanna Mitchell, Maggie Purichia
Outlook: The second-ranked Pioneers, who eliminated Center Grove a year ago, have dropped just two sets in the last month, both in an upset loss to Brebeuf on Sept. 22. Sophomore Hornung, a Purdue commit, is one of the state’s top players; keeping her in check will be a priority for the Trojans. Whoever advances out of that first semifinal should expect to see 34-1 Castle, which has won 25 straight since a five-set setback at Providence in early September. A tough nonconference schedule should have Center Grove prepared to stay with anyone it faces from here on, but the Trojans still have to be considered a slight underdog against anyone but Bloomington South this weekend.
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