Sometimes there’s one tipping point that steers a match toward its eventual outcome. For Class 4A No. 8 Center Grove, that point came in the third set of its semistate championship match against second-ranked Yorktown on Saturday night.
The two teams had split the first two sets, and the Trojans led 20-18 in the third before the Tigers roared back for a 20-25, 25-11, 25-21, 25-17 victory at Bedford North Lawrence Semistate.
The Trojans finish the season with a 27-9 record.
Center Grove kept Yorktown (33-2) at bay in the opening set with a stellar defensive effort — “nothing was dropping on our side,” Trojans coach Jennifer Hawk said — but the Tigers made adjustments and evened the match.
The third was a back-and-forth affair that Center Grove was five points away from closing it out, which Hawk believes would have generated enough momentum to eventually finish off the win.
“Whoever won that third set was going to win the fourth,” she said. “We just couldn’t hold on.”
Outside hitter Charlotte Vinson, an Indiana University recruit, did the bulk of the damage for the Tigers with 22 kills.
The Trojans advanced to the title match with a 25-20, 19-25, 25-16, 25-23 semifinal victory over No. 4 Floyd Central earlier in the day.
Though the night didn’t end the way the Trojans wanted it to, Hawk was happy with how her team matured over the course of the season and became more cohesive instead of focused on individual goals.
“We had a lot of kids who were going to do a lot of things, break a lot of milestones and records and all these things that were kind of overshadowing the ultimate goal,” the coach said. “Once we got those out of our mind, I think it helped refocus what we were really trying to do, and they just came together better as a group.”
