Franklin players cheer from the bench after their teammates score a point against Columbus North on Saturday.
Mike Wolanin | For the Daily Journal
COLUMBUS
If Kennedy Urban and the Franklin volleyball team don’t have to make another trip to Columbus East, that will be just fine with them.
For the second time in two games against the Olympians on East’s home floor this season, Urban had to leave the game after spraining her right ankle. This time, it happened in the middle of the Olympians’ rally from a two-set deficit to post a 19-25-18-25,25-22, 25-14, 15-5 victory in Saturday night’s Class 4A sectional final.
“We don’t like orange at all,” Franklin coach Pat Carlson said with a hint of humor. “We’re not playing here once next year, so we don’t have to come back to this place. We host (sectional) next year, so we’re looking forward to that.”
The Grizzly Cubs (21-10) never trailed in the first set and did not trail by more than three points in the second set. East (20-12) never trailed in a third set that was close all the way.
The Olympians were leading 18-12 in the second set when Urban went out. She was replaced by Zoe Tiemeyer, who was not on Franklin’s original postseason roster.
“Losing my only setter doesn’t help me,” Carlson said. “We even paid $100 (to the IHSAA for a late fee) to have her on the roster because my other setter dislocated her kneecap. So that’s my third setter that we had in. She did the best she could, so I’m not going to complain.”
East jumped out to a 12-3 lead in the fifth set and went on to close out the match.
“They’re good,” Carlson said. “It’s hard to beat a program. We don’t have a program yet. It takes time to build that. Everybody that played tonight is going to be back on the roster, so I’m looking forward to figuring out how I can navigate that. We all talked about what we need to do to get better.”
Scarlett Kimbrell and Rose Mahin each pounded 15 kills, Urban recorded 41 assists, Aubrey Runyon had one solo and eight assist blocks, Kate Pinnick notched 30 digs and Maggie Doty served three aces to lead the Grizzly Cubs.
“I’ll give them credit,” Carlson said. “We watched ‘Rocky IV’ before we played, and knowing that we’re going to get hit, we’re going to get hit often, you have to get back up. I thought when they hit us in that third set, and they got a little angered by a call that changed to our point, they got fired up about it, and they started really zipping us. We were down when Kennedy went out, but I would have loved to have had a fifth set with a full roster.”
It looked like Franklin’s semifinal match Saturday morning would be a quick one after it held Columbus North to single digits in the first two sets. But the Bull Dogs pulled through to take the third set and pushed the Grizzly Cubs to the brink in the fourth a 25-8, 25-9, 21-25, 25-23 Franklin victory.
The Grizzly Cubs jumped out to leads of 11-2 in the first set and 9-2 in the second set and cruised to victory in those sets. But then North switched from a two-setter offense to a one-setter offense and began over the top of the 5-foot-5 Urban.
The plan worked, with the Bull Dogs coming back to cut the deficit to two-sets-to-one. North again started fast in the fourth set, leading 4-1. A 9-1 run by the Grizzly Cubs gave them a 10-5 lead, the they extended that to 15-8.
The Bull Dogs came back to within 23-22 before Franklin got a kill from Kimbrell. A North point made it 24-23 before the Grizzly Cubs closed it out on a kill by Veronica Whitaker.
Mahin recorded 12 kills and two aces, Urban had 36 assists and two aces and Pinnick tallied 22 digs and two aces to lead the Grizzly Cubs. Runyon had two solo and three assist blocks, Kimbrell added 10 kills and 19 digs and Brooklyn York had three assist blocks.