Franklin’s volleyball team suffered a pair of excruciating five-set losses to Greenwood last season, ending a series winning streak that had lasted more than a decade.
Though both teams came into Tuesday’s match with a bit of a different look after offseason coaching changes, the returning Grizzly Cub players certainly didn’t forget those prior setbacks — and they made sure not to let the same thing happen again, dominating all the way through a surprisingly lopsided 25-13, 25-10, 25-12 over the host Woodmen in their season opener.
“It gives you something in your practices to focus on,” first-year Franklin coach Pat Carlson said. “They were pretty geared up and focused this week in practice, because they really wanted to do well and show out a little bit. … They didn’t want to feel that way anymore.”
After falling into an early 4-1 hole in the first set, the Grizzly Cubs took control shortly thereafter, with a Scarlett Kimbrell block giving them the lead for keeps. That block began a 7-1 spurt that got the visitors a 12-6 advantage. Kimbrell served out the last four points of the set, which ended with consecutive kills by Veronica Whitaker and Rose Mahin.
Franklin carried that momentum into the second set, where it quickly snowballed. Maggie Doty delivered a pair of early aces to get the ball rolling, and a string of three straight kills from Kimbrell bumped the lead to 10-3. A handful of attacking errors by the Woodmen only deepened the divide, and after Kennedy Urban found a hole in the Greenwood defense with a soft tip kill, the margin had swelled to 19-4. The home team showed some brief signs of life to prolong the action but ran out of breathing room; the Grizzly Cubs scored the last three points of the set, with kills by Aubrey Runyon and Kimbrell bookending an ace from Emilee Rector.
The Woodmen (0-2) stayed within striking distance at the beginning of the third, pulling to within 9-5 on a cross-court kill by Ella Stivers, but Franklin again proved to be too much. Whitaker and Brooklyn York stuffed Greenwood star Mya Ayro at the net to shift the tide back in the visitors’ favor. Kimbrell delivered back-to-back kills to stretch the lead out to 18-9, and the Woodmen couldn’t get back to within single digits.
Kimbrell, who finished with a match-high 15 kills for the Grizzly Cubs, acknowledged that payback was a motivating factor.
“It was definitely a redemption game,” she said. “Trying to come out for some revenge, and I think we did that.”
Greenwood, which had high expectations after reaching the sectional final last season, seemed out of sync for much of Tuesday’s match — an outcome at least partially attributable to the uncertainty surrounding the team. First-year coach Melissa Antrim abruptly resigned last Friday, just hours before the Woodmen’s opening match against Mt. Vernon, and the ripple effects of that were still evident against Franklin.
“We’ve got a lot of things on our minds right now,” said Zach Mackie, now Greenwood’s fourth head coach in the last 12 months, “and we’re really trying to rebuild this year and trying to build more of this family atmosphere — and there’s some give and take that we’re going to have to have in order to reach that.
“They’re putting in everything that they can over the last week, especially with the circumstances, but we’ve got work to do, and we’re going to buckle down and we’re going to work together to right the ship.”
Urban totaled 26 assists for Franklin in the win; Runyon had six kills and Mahin five. Defensively, Kate Pinnick led the charge with 21 digs.
