In high school volleyball, Center Grove has always been viewed as the team to beat, not only for county schools, but other state teams.
And they’ve long been a source of frustration for Franklin.
Until Thursday night.
In a near marathon session, the host Grizzly Cubs came back from a 2-1 deficit and defeated the visiting Trojans in five sets, 31-29, 13-25, 22-25, 25-23, 15-9. It was their first win in the series since the 2013 sectional.
After the final point, the Franklin girls celebrated with a nice gathering on their end of the net.
“This means a lot,” Franklin coach Pat Carlson said. “The tradition of (Center Grove) winning is always there and when they get going, they are so confident, but they are just as young as we are, so everyone lived through the ebbs and flows of today.”
There were certainly a lot of those.
In that long first set, the Grizzly Cubs and Trojans tied each other 15 times and neither team could pull out more than a three-point lead.
If anything, it served notice to players and fans alike that this was not going to be an easy win for anyone. Not even when Center Grove threatened to blow the match wide open by winning the next two sets.
Coach Jennifer Hawk’s Trojans dominated the second set and didn’t surrender the lead once. The third set was pretty much a repeat of the first, with both teams even until Franklin took a 20-16 lead.
Center Grove then reeled off six consecutive points to go up 22-20 before the Cubs could salvage one, but by then the momentum had clearly gone the Trojans’ way; they gave up one more point before putting the Cubs away in the third and looking to win in four.
Franklin fans might have thought that was it, but Carlson was able to get the Cubs to settle down and play their game, not Center Grove’s.
“We struggled with our mentality tonight,” Carlson said. “We worried about who we were playing instead of how we were playing and that got us in trouble, and we had to fight our way out of it.”
Fight they did.
In the fourth set, the game was tied several times and neither team could pull out a lead larger than two until Franklin kept the Trojans off balance late with their shot placement.
In the final frame, Franklin took control and doubled up on the Trojans at 8-4 and 14-7.
Center Grove scored two points to try and mount a comeback, something it had managed to do in the past, but Franklin (4-2) kept its poise and scored the winning point.
“It was a fun atmosphere,” Carlson said. “It’s a great win and the kids needed that. I can’t ask for any more from them.”
Aubrey Runyon had 14 kills for Franklin, while teammates Rose Mahin and Scarlett Kimbrell had nine each. Kate Pinnick had 14 assists for the winners.
The win halts a one-game skid for Franklin, who previously lost to conference rival Perry Meridian. For Center Grove (5-6), that now makes two straight losses and four in the past five matches.
Center Grove could potentially get a chance to even the score as soon as Saturday, as both the Trojans and Franklin play in the Early Bird tournament at Providence on Saturday.
