 Culver Girls Academy’s Andrijana Cvitkobic (14) spikes the ball, while New Prairie’s Megan Campos, back right, and Alicia Carlton, front right try to block the attack and CGA’s Lauren Jones (8) looks on during a Class 3A Plymouth Volleyball Sectional match Thursday. Pilot photos/ James Costello By James Costello Sports Editor
PLYMOUTH — Coming into the match, Class 3A No. 7 New Prairie was the easy favorite to beat CGA, but a host of illnesses and the loss of two starters made the outcome questionable for the Cougars.
Culver Girls Academy came together to play some of their best volleyball of the year but New Prairie — down right side hitter Kymra Keigley and middle blocker Kayla Debiak — got the benefit of some big-time play from West Point recruit Margaux Jarka, and the Cougars overcame the Eagles 25-16, 26-24, 25-13 in a Plymouth Volleyball Sectional quarterfinal Thursday at The Rock.
“We might have been the favorites with our normal lineup, but we have a lot of illness going on,” said New Prairie head coach Deanne Gonzalez. “We didn’t practice the last two days because I didn’t have a healthy team to practice with. We’ve got two of our starters out with swine flu. Maybe our good team was but I didn’t know what to expect. The lineup we had did one half-hour of practice yesterday.
“We have (Jarka) down for 28 kills tonight, which is over a whole game by herself, and that’s what we need. When she’s on, we’re on. As long as she doesn’t get swine flu, we’ll be OK.”
It wasn’t a surprising outcome for the Eagles, and head coach Lori Elliott was pleased with her girls’ quality of play at the match. Daughter Kirsten Elliott put away 10 kills, gifted freshman Andrijana Cvitkovic came up with five blocks at the net, Emily Gilland recorded 12 assists, and libero Andrea Lin pulled up 13 digs as CGA kept it relatively close, particularly during the extended second game, which the team forced to 26 points.
“We played probably our best match of the year,” said Lori Elliott. “We scouted them, and we knew where to line up with (Jarka), and we were there, and I’ll tell you serve receive and passing has hurt us all season and we were where we needed to be. We just don’t have enough hitters like (Jarka) to keep that going, so we’re going to make a few more errors there.
“That’s exactly what you want to do. You hope that this is your best match of the season, and I think it was.”
CGA carried over some momentum from game two into the final game, going point for point with New Prairie up to a 4-0 tie, but swept up in an 8-0 run during a bad rotation and ended up dropping the final 25-13.
“That third game we kind of got in that rotation, we didn’t have any hitters, we couldn’t get the pass up, we didn’t have a blocker and our big girl was out,” said head coach Elliott. “We were really struggling so that really hurt us in that one game, but other than that we probably played as well as we could have.”
Culver ends its season at 9-16, and although seven seniors bid good-bye to the team, the program has high hopes for next season with several talented players returning, including freshman middle hitter Cvitkovic.
“We’ve got some young girls. Our big girl (Cvitkovic) is only a freshman, never having played the sport,” Lori Elliott said. “She’s here from Croatia, and she’s never played volleyball in her life, never touched a volleyball, so there’s a lot of potential there. Our little libero, this is the first varsity match she had. We’ve got some things coming up, but again it’s just a matter of playing more.
“But I’ve got seven seniors that are going to be missed, and my daughter’s one of them so it’s really tough.”
New Prairie, meanwhile, moves to 27-5 heading into the Plymouth semifinal Saturday, and hopes to have Debiak back in the last two rounds of sectional play.
“Our hope is Kayla will be ready to go by Saturday,” said Gonzalez. “She’s feeling a lot better, but Kymra’s done for sectional.”
• NEW PRAIRIE 3, CULVER GIRLS ACADEMY 0 (25-16, 26-24, 25-13)
At Class 3A Plymouth Volleyball Sectional
Glenn stats
Kills: Kirsten Elliott 10, Andrijana Cvitkovic 2, Lauren Jones 1, Mariah Tabor 1
Blocks: Cvitkovic 5, Jones 3, Emily Gilland 1, Deborah Ohiani-Jegede 1
Aces: Jones 2, Elliott 1
Assists: Gilland 12, Jones 1, Alyssa Weeks 1
Digs: Andrea Lin 13, Tabor 9, Weeks 8, Gilland 5, Jones 4, Elliott 4, Cvitkovic 1
New Prairie stats
Kills: Margaux Jarka 28, Alicia Carlton 8
Aces: Carlton 2, Jayna Colanese 2
Assists: Megan Campos 30
Digs: Carlton 13, Colanese 10
Records: New Prairie 27-5, Culver Girls Academy 9–16 (final)
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