(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
After taking a 2-1 lead in a tight matchup, Ankeny coach Liz Baethke tasked her volleyball players to have their best set of the night.
And the Hawkettes delivered.
Fourth-ranked Ankeny slammed the door shut on Johnston in the fourth set to clinch a 3-1 (25-17, 21-25, 25-23, 25-13) road win over the No. 11 Dragons in a CIML Conference match on Tuesday.
“I told them that I wanted (the fourth set) to be the best set of the night,” Baethke said. “I thought we got pretty close. It’s our first away dual, and I think there were just some mental adjustments we needed to make pregame.”
The first three sets were either never out of reach for the other team or points were traded back and forth, which made Ankeny’s start to the fourth set a complete change of pace.
The Hawkettes opened on a 4-0 run that forced Johnston to use an early timeout, and they came right out of the break by hammering back-to-back kills by Hailey Wiederin and Quinn Roush for a 6-0 lead.
Just when the Dragons were starting to score some points, Marlee Ellison recorded her first of five kills within the next 11 points to spark another 6-0 run for Ankeny. That run ended with Ellison smashing a pair of kills and Raquel Risk hammering one of her nine kills on the night.
Those pair of runs gave the Hawkettes all the cushion they needed to finish off their CIML foe.
“I think when we come out with strong runs right away it helps us a lot,” said junior Teagan Moyer. “It gave us a lot of momentum, so I think that really helped us finish it out and stayed hype the whole game.”
Sophomore Elle Isaacson closed out a great game by tallying three kills within Ankeny’s final seven points. Ellison dealt the final blow with her 12th kill of the night to close out the match.
The Hawkettes saw just how powerful their balanced attack can be with the multiple different options they have at their disposal, and it came in handy while fending off Johnston’s upset bid.
Ankeny recorded 58 total kills as a team with five different Hawkettes finishing over or just shy of double-digit kills.
Isaacson led the team with 13 kills, Moyer chipped in 11 and Wiederin added nine. Roush tallied four kills to go along with a team-high nine blocks.
Moyer and Isaacson gave the Hawkettes a strong boost in the first set. The tandem helped Ankeny record three straight points to build its lead with an Isaacson kill being followed by consecutive Moyer kills.
“I started off strong and got four kills right away,” Moyer said. “I got blocked a few times in the second set and after that I knew I needed to kick it in, just go hard the rest of the game and help my team out.”
The Dragons managed to get it back within a point before a Wiederin kill sparked a 4-0 run to give Ankeny some room to work with.
Isaacson recorded three kills and Moyer added one within the Hawkettes’ last six points to clinch the set.
The second set is where Ankeny faced a little bit of a setback as the Dragons opened up the set with the first point and never gave the lead to the Hawkettes the rest of the way.
Ankeny went on a run with Wiederin, Ellison and Roush drilling three consecutive kills to pull it back within one point. Hailey Flanders got an ace to fall just three points later to tie it at 13-13. Macie Kohl also recorded an ace to tie the set at 15, but neither time was Ankeny able to get the lead.
“(Johnston) was hard to read and there weren’t any obvious tendencies,” Baethke said. “I said to (the girls) that we have to be super disciplined with our mechanics, we have to block, we have to close because they worked on high hands, two on the block and go hard on being creative and using what they have to their advantage.”
The Hawkettes went on a 5-1 run at the end of the set to pull it within 23-21 before the Dragons got a pair of kills to take the set.
One of the biggest turning points of the night came midway through an important third set after Ankeny and Johnston spent a good amount of time trading points back and forth.
Ankeny came out of its first timeout trailing 16-14 and proceeded to go on a 6-0 run that started with a Wiederin kill before Moyer had another one to tie it, then Risk put the Hawkettes ahead with back-to-back kills and Moyer ended the run with a second kill.
“They were shorter, but we came into it knowing they were going to be scrappy,” Moyer said. “After that second set when we lost, we knew we had to come back right after that. I’m just happy we pulled this one out, especially after Waukee last week.”
The win improved Ankeny to 2-1 in the conference and 16-5 overall. The Dragons’ records dropped to 1-3 and 7-9.
Going on the road to Johnston also helped give the Hawkettes a taste of what to expect with a major road stretch in the schedule coming up.
After Ankeny competes in the Waukee Invitational on Saturday, the Hawkettes are slated to play on the road in CIML matchups at Southeast Polk, No. 2 Ankeny Centennial, No. 8 Dowling Catholic and No. 1 Waukee Northwest all in a row.
“We’ve had the luxury of playing at home this whole time,” Baethke said. “But you have to get your mind ready, visualize, know what’s coming and prepare.”
