By Treasure Washington
For the Daily Journal
JASPER
Greenwood Christian was a little bit starstruck as it went into its first-ever semistate matchup.
The team the Cougars were facing, Tecumseh, was a good one. The No. 1 Braves were the 2022 runner-ups in Class A and had many key returning players. But the postseason run the Cougars were on was one for the ages.
They had a dramatic come-from-behind victory against defending regional champion Indianapolis Lutheran in the sectional semifinal, then took down a 26-win Oldenburg Academy team in the regional. Greenwood Christian had not lost a set in the postseason since the comeback victory against the Saints until Saturday afternoon at Jasper.
Tecumseh defeated the Cougars 25-11, 25-19, 25-15 and will be heading to Ball State University’s Worthen Arena for the second year in a row. Still, Greenwood Christian enjoyed this postseason. It learned many things.
“It was definitely a new opportunity for us,” senior Milana Schundelmier said. “Just the fact that we got this far says a lot about us as a team. I’m just proud that we made it here.”
“We knew coming in that they were a good team,” fellow senior Naomi Hillenburg added. “We knew if we just played clean volleyball and stay disciplined that we were going to stay up with them, and that’s what we did. They were better than us, but at the end of the day, we played our game.”
GCA (24-14) had solid outings from Schundelmier and Hillenburg against Tecumseh (32-4). Schundelmier came up with some key plays to help her team keep pace with the Braves, particularly in the second set. Hillenburg was still keeping points alive as well.
Cougars coach Grace Woolsey will miss her five-member senior class and everything the group brought to the table. They’ve completed two seasons with over 20 wins in their high school careers and finished with a losing record only once. And they definitely played critical roles in this special postseason run.
“First I’m going to miss them as human beings,” Woolsey said. “They really have set a legacy of what it means to be an athlete who follows Christ, who plays hard and who lays everything out on the court. I think we’re going to have a few big shoes to fill next year, but we’ve got excellent players that will fill those shoes.”
The returning pieces are going to be solid. Greenwood Christian has a talented setter in Aiva Kresge and strong attackers in Faith Kresge and Addisyn Yoder. With the talent coming back, GCA will use this loss to Tecumseh as a learning tool going forward. It knows it needs to improve on its serve receiving, but its confidence of reaching this high level once again remains high.
“I’m looking forward to yet another good season,” Woolsey said. “We know the potential that we have, and now we have a whole year to kind of work to get back to this point again. So just having that in our minds and knowing what we’re working towards can help more clarify the goals that we can have and the bars we’re really shooting for.”
