The return of junior middle hitter Sophia Heither provided a spark for the Ankeny Centennial volleyball team on Thursday.
It wasn’t enough to lift the third-ranked Jaguars to a sixth consecutive victory over No. 4 Ankeny.
The visiting Hawkettes rallied from a one-set deficit to post a 19-25, 25-23, 28-26, 25-20 win over their crosstown rival. They avenged a loss to the Jaguars at the Centennial Early Bird Invitational on Aug. 30.
“They were super scrappy and got a lot of stuff up,” Heither said of the Hawkettes. “We’ve just got to get back in the gym and work on ourselves.”
After winning the first set, the Jaguars fell behind in each of the next three sets and then rallied, but each time Ankeny held on for the win. The Hawkettes improved to 4-1 in the CIML Conference and 21-6 overall, while Centennial’s records dropped to 3-2 and 17-4.
“I just didn’t think anything worked well for us. We felt very out of sync from the get-go,” said Centennial coach Jessica Rinehart, whose team hit just .097 and completed only 89.2 percent of its serves. “I thought they played fast and aggressive. I thought they worked harder than we did without the ball. We just felt a little slow tonight across the board.”
The Jaguars got off to a fast start behind senior Mady Ott, who had two kills and a block on three of the first four points of the match. A block by Heither extended Centennial’s early lead to 5-2.
Ott later had back-to-back kills to help close out the first set, which ended on a block by teammate Maegan Cheeseman.
“We came out hot,” said Ott, who finished with eight kills. “I was so excited when we got the news that Sophie would be able to play. She came in like nothing had happened, that there wasn’t an injury. She came in and did her job.”
Heither also made an impact in Set 2, when she smashed a kill and also had a pair of blocks in a 7-1 run that gave the Jaguars a 10-8 lead. She had been out of the lineup since suffering a knee injury during the Little Hawk Invitational on Sept. 6 at Iowa City High.
“It definitely has been tough, because I can only help so much,” said Heither, who racked up six kills and a team-high seven blocks while hitting .278 on the night. “I’m definitely glad to be back on the court with the girls.”
Ankeny then responded with an 11-3 run that turned the tide in the Hawkettes’ favor. Centennial eventually closed the gap to 24-23 on a kill by Bailey Snyder before Raquel Risk answered with one of her own to tie the match at one set apiece.
“I feel like they were playing solid defense,” Ott said. “We weren’t moving it around in the best ways, and they just had our number on the blocks sometimes. From the last time we saw them, they’ve gotten a little bit quicker. Maybe we were a little thrown off by that.”
The pivotal third set featured 14 ties and eight lead changes. The Hawkettes pulled away midway through the set to build a 20-15 advantage and later took a 24-21 lead on a kill by Risk, but Centennial then responded with four straight points to regain a 25-24 margin.
The Jaguars had a pair of set points, but Risk thwarted one with a block and then had a kill to ignite a 3-0 run that allowed Ankeny to close out the set.
“It would have been nice to get that one. It was close,” Rinehart said. “It just felt like we were climbing in quicksand all night. We rarely started with a lead, and we were always playing catch-up the entire game. Things just felt off.”
Centennial briefly took a 2-1 lead in Set 4, but the Hawkettes then went on an 11-4 run and never looked back. The match eventually ended on the Jaguars’ 10th service error.
Rinehart tried some different lineup combinations in the final set in an effort to change the momentum.
“We have a good bench,” she said. “Things weren’t working well across the board. We thought we would try something to see if it worked.”
Tatem Schmidt led Centennial with 12 kills and also had 16 assists. Ellie Pollock contributed seven kills and four blocks, while Snyder also had seven kills.
Cheeseman finished with four kills and 23 assists. Libero Mya Lei-Butters racked up 26 digs, and Kaelyn Rinehart added 18.
Lei-Butters now has 1,110 career digs, which broke the school record held by Ella Becker since 2021.
“I think we might have played them differently the first time than we did today,” Rinehart said. “And I thought they played well tonight.”
The Jaguars will host another conference showdown against No. 2 Waukee on Tuesday. The Warriors are 3-1 in the league and 19-3 overall after being swept by No. 1 Waukee Northwest on Tuesday.
“We’ll take this to practice, work hard and try to get better together,” Ott said.
