Perhaps no volleyball team in the state enjoys playing a fifth set as much as Ankeny Centennial.
The top-ranked Jaguars were pushed to the limit on Tuesday for the third time this season, and once again they outlasted a top-10 opponent.
Centennial used an 8-0 run in the fifth set to help close out a 23-25, 25-20, 25-21, 22-25, 15-12 victory at No. 3 Dowling Catholic. The win avenged a 25-21, 25-14 loss to Dowling in the semifinals of the Centennial Invitational on Aug. 31.
“It feels awesome,” said Centennial middle hitter Mady Ott. “It was definitely a win that we needed.”
Centennial had opened the season with a five-set win at then-No. 6 Indianola on Aug. 26. A week later, the Jaguars scored the final eight points of the match for another five-set victory over then-No. 9 Waukee Northwest.
On Tuesday, coach Jessica Rinehart’s squad prevailed yet again.
“This one feels the best–not that we got lucky in the other ones–but we just had more control in this one over the entire match,” said Rinehart. “I like the way our team played, and I liked the way we came together in this one. This one feels really good.”
Finley Greiner smashed a kill to cap the 8-0 run in Set 5, giving Centennial a 12-6 lead. She later had another kill to make it 14-11, halting a 5-1 run by the Maroons.
“It gives us confidence that we can stay great over a five-set match,” Greiner said of those earlier wins. “It just gives us a lot of confidence.”
Dowling fought off one match point when Siri Beecher pounded a kill to cut the Jaguars’ advantage to 14-12. But the Maroons’ ensuing serve then sailed out of bounds to end the match.
Dowling finished with 13 serving errors, going just 89-of-102 from behind the line. The Maroons’ aggressiveness seldom paid off–they recorded only two aces.
“They always serve aggressive–that is what they do in this program,” Rinehart said of the Maroons. “And so with that, sometimes you have more errors. Sometimes it works in your favor where you have a ton of aces. It’s kind of high risk and high reward.”
The win left Centennial tied atop the CIML Conference standings with No. 8 Waukee, which also won a five-set match at Southeast Polk in similar fashion. The Jaguars are now 3-0 in the league and 14-3 overall, while Dowling’s records dropped to 2-1 and 16-5.
“We worked so hard, and it just feels great that we did it as a team,” Greiner said. “It took a lot of mental toughness and a lot of support from your teammates and a lot of energy to bring each other up.”
The two teams traded punches through the first four sets. Dowling used a 9-2 run to overcome a 21-16 deficit in the opening set, but the Jaguars then pulled away from a 14-14 tie in Set 2 to even the match.
Sophia Heither had three of her eight kills in the second set, including one to finish it off. She hit .438 on the night and combined with Ott to provide some timely attacks from the middle.
“We worked on it at practice to make sure we ran our middles and to keep all of our hitters open and flowing,” said Ott, who contributed seven kills.
Centennial scored five of the last six points in the third set and closed it out on a kill by Jaeden Pratt. She finished with 11 kills and 16 digs.
The Jaguars took a 19-15 lead in Set 4 on a block by Greiner, but Dowling then answered with a 10-3 run to even the match. Ellie Muller had back-to-back kills to close out the set.
In the decisive fifth set, Ott had a kill to ignite Centennial’s big run. She later had two more to extend the Jaguars’ lead to 10-6.
“Once I got in, I was making sure that the energy was rolling and just had to keep that energy going,” Ott said.
Centennial outhit the Maroons by a .305 to .282 margin. Delaney Miller racked up 20 kills, Greiner had 10, and Tatem Schmidt added eight more.
The Jaguars overcame some strong blocking by Dowling, which got six blocks from Kate Nelson.
“I think we were just trying to attack it,” Greiner said. “We know that our defense is going to cover us and so we were just making our shots and hoping for the best.”
Maegen Cheeseman dished out 30 assists for Centennial, while Schmidt had 26 and also contributed 14 digs. Heither had three blocks, and Mya Lei-Butters recorded 25 digs.
“We dug a ton of balls and kept a ton of plays alive,” Rinehart said. “I really think we came in with the mentality that we were going to outwork our opponent in the next four matches that we play, and I think we’ve really embraced that and did that. We worked hard.”
Cheeseman and Ellie Pollock each had two aces for the Jaguars, who served 97.3 percent (107-of-110). Pollock was a perfect 22-of-22.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the team,” Rinehart said. “It’s really cool to watch everybody have a piece in it and own their role. We just had players throughout the night do incredible things.”
Kaylie Klein had 18 kills to lead Dowling. Muller chipped in 15, and Ella Rogers had 54 assists.