For the last two weeks, the Ankeny Centennial volleyball team focused most of its attention on third-ranked Ankeny.
Not even an injury to one of their top players could prevent the No. 7 Jaguars from knocking off their crosstown rival.
Centennial moved into sole possession of first place in the CIML Iowa Conference with a 28-26, 31-29, 25-23 victory at Ankeny on Tuesday. The win ended a three-match losing streak to the Hawkettes.
“It feels amazing,” said Centennial libero Ella Becker, who racked up 27 digs in the win. “We focused on ourselves, and we knew we had to have mental toughness coming into the game. We definitely had that. We kept pushing, and we put balls to the floor and it was just awesome.”
Centennial overcame an injury to outside hitter Olivia Anderson in the first set to defeat the Hawkettes for the first time since 2018. The Jaguars improved to 4-0 in the conference and 17-5 overall, while Ankeny’s records dropped to 3-1 and 30-5.
“Based on what I had seen in practice the last two weeks, this is kind of what I had hoped and expected tonight,” said Centennial coach Jessica Rinehart. “It was just an awesome effort by our team. I’m very proud of them.”
Ankeny played without head coach Dave Whims, who has been battling an illness for the last few weeks. He arrived at the gym on Tuesday with his team, but then immediately went home.
“As soon as I got in the gym, I knew I was not able to coach,” Whims said.
Assistant coach Sam Sheldon guided the Hawkettes in Whims’ absence. Her team was outhit by the Jaguars, .207 to .129.
“In a weird way, I think this is one of the best things that could have happened to us,” Sheldon said. “We know what we need to improve on, and the girls are going to come into practice with another level of focus because we want to be able to get to state and to win state. That’s their goal. But they have a lot of work to do to get there, and that showed tonight.”
Ankeny got off to a good start, jumping out to a 6-2 lead in the first set. The Hawkettes led, 11-8, when Anderson injured her left knee on a spike attempt.
Rinehart inserted Kendra Kasperbauer into the Jaguars’ lineup to replace Anderson. The junior contributed 13 digs and an ace in the match.
“We had Kendra come in, and she did a great job stepping in there,” said teammate Marissa Meyer. “It just shows how good of a player she is. She brought good energy, too.”
Centennial later scored four straight points to take a 24-21 lead, but Ankeny then fought off five set points–getting three kills and a block from Ava Reynolds–to prolong the set.
However, a block by Delainey Winkel gave the Jaguars a 27-26 advantage. Meyer then followed with a kill to close out the set.
“We knew going into that match that we were already going to win, and I think that really helped,” Meyer said. “We had a positive mindset, and we practiced staying mentally strong for tough situations like that, even without Liv. I think that really helped.”
Ankeny held a 22-19 lead in each of the next two sets, but the Hawkettes were unable to finish. They had two set points in the second set, but each time the Jaguars got a sideout.
Centennial eventually got back-to-back kills from Mitchell and Monica Mirembe to close out a marathon set that featured 14 ties and six lead changes.
“We had planned for so many different scenarios to happen,” said Ankeny libero Lexi Stephens, who finished with 25 digs. “We knew what we had to do, but our emotions were kind of a rollercoaster. We needed to step on that gas pedal from the beginning and keep going.”
In the final set, the Jaguars scored six of the last seven points to complete the sweep. Meyer got a kill to break a 23-23 tie, then Mitchell followed with a block to close out the match.
“We wanted it so bad,” Meyer said. “There was so much energy and passion for the game. We all picked each other up, no matter what. We expected a sweep, but I don’t think everybody else did. It was more fun to show them that we could actually do that. And we did do that.”
Mirembe had 10 kills and six blocks to lead the Jaguars. Meyer had eight kills and five blocks, while Mitchell added six kills, six blocks and two aces.
Winkel finished with five kills. Hannah Kurth added four, all of them in the third set to ignite Centennial’s rally from an 18-12 deficit.
“They just dug in, partially playing for Liv and partially playing for themselves,” Rinehart said. “They knew what this game meant. They knew we were going to have to be tough. We stressed mental toughness the last week and a half of practice, and I think it showed tonight. We had so many people step up.”
Morgan DenBeste dished out 30 assists in the win. DenBeste and Taylor Bechen each had 15 digs.
Bechen and Becker each went 14-of-14 from behind the serving line.
“We wanted to focus on our tough serving, get them out of system,” Becker said. “We wanted to use the middles a lot because we have some really strong middles, and our blocking was huge this game. It’s great when the block and the defense can work together. The block was really set so we could just work around them. It was exactly in system.”
Reynolds had 13 kills and 15 digs for the Hawkettes. Aowyn Schrader chipped in 11 kills, while Olivia Harpenau added 10 kills and three blocks.
Jesa Wallace and Adalyn Goodwin contributed 23 and 18 assists, respectively.
“We were going to try to shut down (Mirembe) as much as we could,” Sheldon said. “We tried to mix up our lineup a little bit just to give us some better looks, and we kind of reverted back that last set to our normal stuff. We’ve had a lot of sickness on the team. I’m really excited to get us healthy again and back to playing our normal volleyball.”
Ankeny’s Maddie Foels completed all 13 of her serves, but the Hawkettes finished with eight service errors and just two aces.
“I think the difference was we were so prepared coming in that we were overanalyzing every little thing we do, and we didn’t go with our instincts,” Stephens said. “But then we started to pick it up at the end. We know we’re a good volleyball team. We’ve just got to play the way we know we can.”
