When she was a sophomore, Katie Egenolf was on the semistate stage going spike for spike with the nation’s No. 1 team (New Castle) and a pair of All-Americans. She knows where Center Grove volleyball is supposed to be and what it’s supposed to look like.
At the beginning of this season, with a new head coach and a lineup full of rookies, the Trojans definitely weren’t there. But the team has closed strong, and after victories over Franklin and Greenwood last weekend, they’re right back where they were each of the six previous years — getting ready for a Class 4A regional.
Center Grove (22-9) meets 10th-ranked Columbus East in a semifinal match at Bloomington North. The winner will face either Floyd Central or No. 7 Castle for the championship.
Still being alive at this stage was not a given back in August. The Trojans had just two players — seniors Egenolf and Avery Holubar — who had been varsity regulars, and they were also adjusting to the arrival of coach Jennifer Hawk, a Center Grove alum who had spent the last four seasons at Perry Meridian.
Over its first 10 matches, Center Grove was 5-5, needing five sets to get each of those five victories. Among the five defeats, meanwhile, was a three-set loss at Carmel that ended the Trojans’ 51-match conference winning streak.
Unranked statewide and dismissed by some, nobody panicked in house.
“It was just a lot of newness to get through,” Hawk said. “Not only just me being new to the veterans, it was adding in a lot of younger players into that veteran group. So it was expected to kind of have a rocky start, and then we just learned as we go, and continue to trust each other and push each other and challenge each other every day at practice, and that’s what I emphasize with them.”
The early-season struggles made some suddenly see the Trojans as vulnerable; perhaps, some in the area believed, the county and sectional titles are up for grabs. That sentiment was expressed publicly several times by rival teams.
Center Grove took it all personally, and used it as fuel for its late-season surge. The Trojans have now won nine of their last 11, and with an emphatic 25-21, 25-13, 25-9 sweep of a solid Greenwood team in the sectional final, they sent a message to the naysayers.
“We’re known for winning,” Egenolf said on Saturday night, “but this year, it’s been different. We’ve been doubted more than once in more than one tournament, so I think just showing the impact of the score of this game lets people know that we’re not some rollover team.”
It also let everyone, including the Trojans’ younger players, know what the team is capable of on the bigger stages. Having the experience of county and sectional title runs in their pocket should help going forward.
“These girls had not been in this type of situation before,” Egenolf said, “and I think once they got that off of their chest, we took a breath and we finally played like Center Grove volleyball.”
Getting to that point took some doing. The Trojans have leaned heavily on their two seniors for leadership throughout the season, though, and Egenolf and Holubar gladly took on that responsibility.
“With our past few years, we’ve seen the upperclassmen and how they lead, and that’s really helped us,” said Holubar, who leads the team in digs and aces and ranks second in kills behind Egenolf. “So now that it’s our turn, we’ve been waiting for the moment to have the pressure.”
And to never let their teammates see them sweat.
“When we’re calm, they’re calm,” Holubar added.
The Trojans face another pressure situation in Bloomington on Saturday. The Olympians, who beat the Trojans 24-26, 25-19, 15-6 in a tournament back on Sept. 4, boast a tall front line led by 6-foot-4 junior Gabby Dean.
Hawk’s plan, as it has been all year, is to put some heat on her players during the week so that when it comes during a match, it’s not a total shock to the system.
“We try to create situations that are stressful, and make it not as stressful in the moment,” the coach said. “It’s going to be regardless, but we just do our best to create it in practice and … learn how to handle it.”
That approach seems to be paying off at the right time. Regardless of how bumpy the road here might have been for the Trojans, they’re still going.
