(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
There’s a lot of fun ways to celebrate a birthday and for Ankeny Centennial volleyball coach Jessica Rinehart, getting a conference road sweep is a perfect way to do just that.
Rinehart watched her second-ranked Jaguars hold Urbandale to just 23 total points on the night as Centennial improved to 12-2 overall and 1-1 in CIML Conference play behind its 3-0 sweep (25-11, 25-6, 25-6) on Tuesday.
“We like birthday wins,” said Rinehart. “We’ll take that one.”
“It was good,” added senior Tatem Schmidt, who led the Jaguars with 10 kills and three blocks. “We were trying (to get the birthday win). We were playing for (coach Rinehart) and playing for each other.”
Centennial wasted no time taking control of the match as the Jaguars opened up the first set on a 10-1 run and held about a 12-point lead for most of the set.
They had a chance to close out the set only giving up eight points to Urbandale, but the J-Hawks managed to rattle off three points before a service error gave Centennial its first set of the night.
In the second set, Urbandale tied it up at 1-1 early on and later pulled to within 11-5. But the Jaguars responded by going on a 13-0 run to slam the door shut on the set.
Mady Ott put the exclamation point on the 25-6 victory by smashing one of her seven kills on the night.
“Our goal was to stay locked in for 75 straight points,” Rinehart said. “I thought we did a good job of staying focused on our side of the net, playing pretty clean and getting the job done.”
From there, the Jaguars cruised to victory.
Kaelyn Rinehart served the ball for 13 straight points to open up the third set as Centennial jumped out to a commanding 12-1 lead. By the time Urbandale matched its point total from the second set, the Jaguars were just five points away from clinching the sweep, which it ultimately did with a 5-0 run for back-to-back 25-6 set wins and the 3-0 sweep.
The J-Hawks remained winless at 0-3 in the league and 0-9 overall.
“We’re playing for each other and all looking to each other,” Schmidt said. “We’re just trying to have a fun season, and it’s going well.”
Centennial’s Maegan Cheeseman finished with six kills, 23 assists and six digs. Sidney Rogers also had six kills.
One of the brightest spots for the Jaguars was getting everyone on the roster some playing time minus junior middle hitter Sophia Heither, who suffered an injury during the Little Hawk Invitational on Saturday at Iowa City High.
Rinehart is keeping her fingers crossed that she’ll receive some good news that Heither will be able to return to the lineup, but in the meantime, the Jaguars have got the talent to help fill the void.
“I said my one birthday wish was that it comes back and she is ok,” Rinehart said. “She still has to get an MRI done, so we don’t have an official word yet. But fingers crossed, and my birthday wish is that she’ll be back.”
Centennial got all 13 players out on the court and combined for 39 total kills with nine different players contributing to that total. Eight different players recorded a dig, six different players recorded a block and five different players recorded an ace.
In a loaded conference, it’s not every day that the Jaguars are able to afford spreading out the playing time, but with a dominant win like Tuesday’s sweep, they were more than happy to see success carried out by everyone on the roster.
“It was awesome,” Schmidt said. “We love playing with our whole team. We have a super deep bench, which is awesome. We know if someone is off, they can go in. But today, we just felt like everybody deserved to go in and we played good and everyone that went in played their role.”
Following their two losses against No. 1 Waukee Northwest, the Jaguars have now rattled off six straight victories going into a big slate of tournament and conference games in the schedule.
Centennial heads to the Metro Classic on Saturday at Southeast Polk, which will also feature the likes of Northwest and No. 4 Waukee.
After that, Centennial hosts four straight conference games against teams all inside the Class 5A top 10 rankings with No. 8 Dowling Catholic visiting the Jaguars’ gym, followed by No. 10 Valley, No. 3 Ankeny and then Waukee.
“I think the team feels great about where we’re at, and they know we’ve got a couple of challenging weeks ahead of us,” Rinehart said. “We’re going to give it everything we’ve got. We know we’ll have some tough battles, but I think they’re prepared mentally and physically to face that challenge.”