In a heavy week of matches, first-year Franklin volleyball coach Pat Carlson was glad to get off the court quickly Wednesday night.
The host Grizzly Cubs swept Greenwood Christian in three sets, winning 25-12, 25-11, 25-6 in the first round of the Johnson County tournament. Franklin (16-6) will meet Greenwood winner in a 5:30 p.m. semifinal tonight at Edinburgh. The championship match will follow.
Carlson said it’s always fun to be able to play several girls, and that he hopes his team will be playing two matches tonight.
“We just talked about how the next night is bigger and how to handle the emotions correctly,” Carlson said.
The Grizzly Cubs won all three sets against Greenwood in the first match of the season.
Carlson said it is shaping up to be a long week; Franklin defeated Plainfield in three sets Tuesday night and will play Hamilton Southeastern and Noblesville Saturday.
The Grizzly Cubs got off to an 8-0 start Wednesday with junior outside hitter Brooklyn Hudson serving.
“Brooklyn started us off hot and that was nice,” Carlson said. “I love GCA’s spirit. They didn’t quit. They didn’t give up. We’ve got to be pretty methodical about what they do. We can carve people up if we’re doing things the right way.”
The Cougars narrowed the first-set deficit to 13-10 before the Grizzly Cubs finished with a 12-2 run.
“The only thing I feel is we can do better is not let those three-, four- and five-point lulls happen,” Carlson said. “One mistake for us tends to lead to three or four. Not to be picky about the scores. I’ll look at us. I’m not worried about what they’re doing.”
Junior outside hitter Scarlett Kimbrell delivered 11 kills and freshman outside hitter Rose Mahin was next with nine for the Grizzly Cubs, who have already won three more matches than last season.
Sophomore libero Kate Pinnick had 14 digs and Mahin had 12. Junior setter Kennedy Urban was high with 30 assists and three aces for the Grizzly Cubs.
Cougars coach Grace Woolsey said the way her team responded in the first set was more typical of the way it usually plays than the rest of the night was.
“We’re probably one of the most energetic and resilient teams that I’ve ever seen in all my time playing and coaching,” Woolsey said. “In the first set, they were there. But in the last two sets, tonight was not a great representation of that (resiliency).”
