Last night, the Bloomington South Panthers took on the state-ranked No. 8 Center Grove Trojans in a tough home match. The Panthers were coming in hot off of their 3-0 sweep of Bedford North Lawrence on Tuesday, but the Panthers haven’t had much luck with the Trojans lately, losing their last six meetings.
The Panthers fought hard, but Center Grove’s high-level play and court vision made the difference in this contested matchup. Ultimately, the Trojans swept the Panthers in three sets.
The first set kicked off with a pair of aces from Panther setter Charlie Monroe, giving South an early boost of energy and momentum that carried through to the end of the set. South was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 12 aces. While the team was averaging zero aces per game earlier this season, in their last five games they’ve averaged eight.
As the Trojans gained momentum, a questionable in-bounds call at 23-24 gave the Panthers a temporary advantage. However, with a final push, Center Grove’s nationally-ranked middle hitter and Stanford commit, Reese Dunkle, secured the winning point, closing the set 27-24 in favor of the Trojans.
In the second set, Center Grove dominated early, jumping out to a 10-0 lead before junior Panther outside hitter Adriene Shaevitz halted the streak with a strong hit. Despite visible frustration and struggles to find their rhythm, the Panthers couldn’t stop the Trojans’ momentum, and Center Grove took the set 25-10.
By the third set, the Panthers were hungry for redemption, and both teams traded points throughout. Though South briefly took the lead, the Trojans rallied, tying the game at 18-18 and then again at 24-24. In the end, Dunkle delivered another clutch hit, securing a 25-24 victory and the match for Center Grove.
Despite the loss, several Panthers players had solid performances including Senior libero Lake Butiste who finished the match with six digs.
“I just like playing [close] games because playing against girls that are 6’3” is really fun, honestly. Being able to play well against those teams [is] a confidence boost for sure. Also just knowing that I can compete [at a high level] definitely helps me, [and] I just feel good about college next year too,” Butiste, who is committed to play collegiate volleyball at Indiana University Southeast, said.
Additionally, Butiste recorded two aces, the most she has posted in her last seven matches.
“I’ve been really working on my [serve] recently, and I feel like over the season I had to get better about high-pressure situations. Your serve is one of the most important things in volleyball that you can control yourself. I feel like I’ve been trying to lock in, and really secure my serves because if I am not having a good serve-receive game…[or if] I just can’t get the passes to the right spots, I know that I have my serve and I can control that every time,” Butiste said.
Charlie Monroe added four aces to the tally, and Everly Clark who had a great night putting the ball down with eight kills, along with Shaevitz and Maddie Meiers adding four kills each.
“I noticed that they were pulled out [on the] perimeters, so I was hitting down the line to try and avoid the block,” Clark said, attributing her success to noticing gaps in the Trojan’s blocking and defensive efforts.
Next up, the Panthers face Columbus East at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. South is facing Columbus East at the right time seeing as Columbus East is stuck on a four-game losing streak.
“I feel like we have a ‘next ball’ mentality, which is kind of [the] motto [within] our program. If you shank a pass, [or] you hit a ball out of bounds, it’s okay because you have the next ball…volleyball is very intense and when you’re out [on the court] and you make mistakes, you don’t have time to dwell on [them],” Butiste said.
Clark added, “I think it’ll be a good game and that we’ll be pretty competitive. I think just [serving and hitting] are going to be important for us.”
