The Ankeny Centennial volleyball team won’t have much time to dissect Monday’s season-opening loss to Indianola.
The Jaguars will be back on the court Tuesday to host Waukee in their CIML Conference opener after falling to the visiting Indians in four sets. Indianola posted a 25-16, 25-20, 20-25, 25-19 victory in a non-conference matchup between highly-ranked teams.
The Indians are second in the Class 4A preseason rankings by the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union, while Centennial is the No. 6 team in Class 5A.
“They’re a good, solid squad,” said Centennial coach Jessica Rinehart.
Indianola relied on its aggressive serving to control the match. The Indians pounded 15 aces, seven of them in the first set alone.
“Our serve receive was not good on our side of the net,” Rinehart said. “It’s hard to play a whole game when that’s off, and it’s obviously an area that we need to work on.”
Indianola never trailed in the first two sets. The Indians jumped out to an 11-3 lead in the first set and eventually closed it out with an ace.
Centennial fell behind in the second set, 8-1, but later closed the gap to 21-19 on a kill by Delaney Miller. However, Indianola then scored four of the next five points to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five match.
The Jaguars took their first lead of the night, 6-5, early in the third set. They later went on a 9-3 run to build a 19-11 advantage.
The Indians answered with six straight points before Centennial responded with a 6-3 run and closed out the set on a kill by Gabby Mixdorf.
“I do like that our girls never gave up. They kept fighting,” Rinehart said. “I think we’re a lot better than what we showed tonight, so that was kind of disappointing. But I know first-game jitters come into play. It was a big home match. But it was a little disappointing.”
After Centennial’s Jaeden Pratt pounded a kill to open the fourth set, Indianola scored eight of the next nine points and took an 8-2 lead on an ace by Maci Lerseth. The Indians eventually closed out the match with another ace.
Miller and Pratt each had 14 kills to lead the Jaguars, while Anna Sash added six. Pratt hit .385 on the night, but Centennial hit just .145 as a team.
Kambria Leazer dished out 25 assists, while Ava Kronenberg had four blocks. Pratt racked up 17 digs, and Mya Lei-Butters chipped in 11.
Sash went 18-of-18 serving and had the team’s only ace. Tatem Schmidt went 14-of-14 from behind the line.
“There were moments for sure (where we played well),” Rinehart said. “We’re still going to try things. We have a young squad, and I don’t know that we’ve fully landed on the lineup that we’re going to use for the whole season. This first little stretch might be a little bit of an experiment. We’re going to have to have some patience as we try some people in some different positions until we figure out what the best lineup is for us.”
