Ankeny Centennial’s domination of the Little Hawk Invitational volleyball tournament continued on Saturday at Iowa City High.
The second-ranked Jaguars won the event for the fifth straight year, but it may have been costly. Junior middle hitter Sophia Heither went down with an injury in the team’s final match of the day.
Centennial coach Jessica Rinehart said the extent of the injury is unknown.
“We’ll find out more on Monday,” Rinehart said.
The Jaguars held on for a 21-18, 21-19 win over Iowa City Regina despite Heither’s injury. Regina (8-3) is ranked No. 4 in Class 2A.
“That took the wind out of our sails when Sophie went down, but we held on to finish out the tournament undefeated!” said Rinehart, whose team is now 11-2 on the season. “I’m so proud of our entire crew, the way they play the game and the support they show to each other!”
Centennial swept four of its five opponents on Saturday. The Jaguars opened the tournament with a 21-8, 21-14 win over Burlington, then later rolled to victories over No. 14 Iowa City High (21-11, 21-7) and Council Bluffs Lewis Central (21-10, 21-10).
Centennial was pushed to three sets in its second match against No. 11 Bettendorf (4-7). After dropping the second set, the Jaguars rebounded to close out a 21-10, 15-21, 15-13 triumph.
Centennial had swept the Bulldogs at its home tournament on Aug. 30.
“Overall, I was happy with how we played,” Rinehart said. “We took our foot off the gas in the second set against Bettendorf, and they caught a little fire. But we did a good job bringing it back and getting the ‘W’. I moved the lineup around quite a bit to get different looks, and that can affect consistency. But it was great to get everyone playing time throughout the five matches.”
Tatem Schmidt racked up 10 kills, nine assists and 12 digs in the win over Bettendorf. Maegan Cheeseman had eight kills, 14 assists and 10 digs, while Heither added four kills and three blocks.
Ellie Pollock had a pair of aces for the Jaguars. Cheeseman and Nora Bockes each completed all 10 of their serves.
Centennial will play a CIML Conference match on Tuesday at Urbandale (0-8).