(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
The sister tandem of Quinn and Kellen Roush was nearing career milestones heading into the Ankeny volleyball team’s Tuesday night matchup at Johnston.
Quinn, a senior middle hitter, was five blocks shy of 200 career blocks. Kellen, a sophomore setter, was just four assists away from surpassing 500 career assists.
The Roush sisters reached both of their milestones while helping the third-ranked Hawkettes to a 25-16, 25-15, 25-15 victory over the No. 15 Dragons.
“They impact the entire program,” Ankeny coach Liz Baethke said of the Roush sisters. “(Assistant coach) Michaela Roush has been around years and years and has done a really good job of filling me in on the history of things and the pieces that are important for a newbie. Then the daughters (Quinn and Kellen), Tanith included, are a great family to have gotten acquainted with, and I couldn’t be more happy with that decision (to come here).”
Quinn led Class 5A a year ago with 125 blocks and went into Tuesday’s match with 70 blocks already under belt, which ranks second in the entire state. She reached her milestone early in the third set and finished with five blocks.
The Dragons looked toward their kill leader Tabitha Molden to help them cut into Ankeny’s early 5-2 lead, but was met at the net by Roush and junior outside hitter Hailey Wiederin for Roush’s 200th career block.
“It’s definitely been a challenge being undersized and I’ve definitely had to work really hard, but I can’t take all the credit,” Quinn said of her journey to becoming one of the state’s premier blockers. “I give a lot of credit to my pins. They’re pretty amazing. Just working on it every day in practice helps a lot.”
Kellen has made a big impact for the Hawkettes as she’s eclipsed the 500-assist mark in her first season serving as Ankeny’s setter alongside senior Macie Kohl. She amassed 496 assists in the first 27 matches of the season.
Kellen reached 499 assists by finding Wiederin twice and senior Marlee Ellison once for kills as Ankeny took an early lead to open up the first set.
“I’ve got to give a lot of credit to my passers,” Kellen said of her success. “They always make sure I get a beautiful ball so I can set up my pins or my middles. It’s really helpful because there’s a lot of competition in our gym, and that makes us overall better.”
There was no other better recipient for Kellen to set for and achieve the milestone than her sister. Quinn’s first kill of the night gave the Hawkettes a 16-8 lead in the first set and came off her sister’s 500th career assist.
“It’s been really fun,” Quinn said. “People think when you have your sister on your court all the time, it’s like you start fighting a lot, but I feel like we work really well together especially being a setter-middle duo. It’s quite deadly if you ask me.”
Kellen went on to finish with 25 assists and a pair of aces in the Hawkettes’ win.
Ankeny eventually closed out the first set on consecutive kills from junior Elle Isaacson and sophomore Emerson Hutchins.
The largest deficit the Hawkettes faced all night was a 3-1 Johnston lead to open up the second set. It wasn’t long, though, before Ankeny ran away with the set.
Tied at 5-5, Ellison recorded one of her 10 kills of the night to spark a 10-0 Ankeny run, which led to the Dragons burning both of their second-set timeouts in a five-point stretch.
“We really wanted our passing to shine tonight because we dipped just slightly on our serve receive, but that appeared to be back and that pleases me because that gives us the options offensively,” Baethke said. “We had some really cool plays going tonight, so that was neat and it had their blockers not knowing what to do.”
Johnston later cut its deficit to seven points before kills from Ellison, Wiederin and Isaacson closed out the set and put the Hawkettes in position for a road sweep.
Wiederin kicked off the third set by hammering three straight kills, which helped her finish the night with a match-high 12 kills, and was followed by a Kellen Roush ace to give Ankeny a 4-0 lead.
The margin was later extended to double digits off the back of a 7-0 run that turned the Hawkettes’ 9-4 lead into a 16-4 advantage.
“(We were) moving the ball around and we were fooling their block a lot,” Quinn Roush said. “Our passing on the deep corners was something that we wanted to work on, and it got so much better.”
Johnston tried to claw its way back late in the set and pulled within six points before Ankeny rattled off four straight points with a kill and an assist from Hutchins and a kill from Ellison fueling the 4-0 run to clinch the sweep.
Isaacson had eight kills in the win, which improved Ankeny to 4-0 in the CIML Conference and 23-5 overall. The Dragons’ records dropped to 1-3 and 16-9.
Hutchins pounded seven kills in 11 swings without a hitting error for a .636 hitting percentage. She also matched teammate Raquel Risk with four blocks.
Kohl contributed 11 assists, Wiederin had three aces, and Ellison completed 25-of-26 serves. Libero Katelyn Mescher racked up 18 digs.
The win was a good tune-up for Ankeny’s biggest test of the season on Thursday, when the Hawkettes will host No. 1 Waukee Northwest in a showdown for first place in the conference. It also helped Baethke’s team put Saturday’s Waukee Invitational behind them after going 3-2 on the day while dealing with a variety of injuries.
“We came off of a pretty hard weekend, and I’m so happy that we were just able to bounce back and get right back to it,” Quinn said.
“I feel like everyone really performed at their best tonight, and it really helped us get all our energy back from (Saturday’s tournament),” Kellen added.
Northwest is 5-0 in the conference and 14-2 overall after sweeping Southeast Polk on Tuesday. The Wolves defeated Ankeny, 25-22, 25-18, in the finals of the Ankeny Centennial Early Bird Invitational on Aug. 29.
“We just need to stick to our game plan,” Baethke said. “We got some things up our sleeve, but we also need to come out organized on our side and not get frantic, get chaotic and play into their tempo. We want Hawk tempo.”
