The Pilot News - Knox wins volleyball sectional

“This group of girls has never won a sectional game in anything — basketball or anything,” said head coach Jake Skelly. “They’re young. They started playing as freshmen, but I wasn’t sure how they were going to react. It shows a lot about them. They’re just relentless and they hate to lose and they’ll do whatever it takes to win. That’s what I respect about this group so much.”
Knox’s sectional run was just the latest in a long list of distinctions the team has earned this year. The run didn’t start with the Redskins’ sectional opener against Calumet last Thursday or even at the official start of practice in July.
Knox players were already hard at work, participating in a multitude of camps, including the Purdue Volleyball Camp — at which the Redskins won their division — playing in clubs and at summer tournaments as well as in a pair of summer leagues at their home league and another hosted by Northern State Conference rival New Prairie.
In fact, Skelly estimates his girls had played 75 matches before the fall season ever began.
“That’s the most we’ve ever done, and I was worried about the girls getting burned out,” said Skelly, “But we tried to make it fun, and I believe it just helped us playing good competition. Between that and the girls that played club volleyball — all that experience is our team in a nutshell.”
And it’s experience that has paid big dividends. Besides their sectional milestone over the weekend, the Redskins have ticked off a number of exploits in 2009. They placed second at the competitive LaPorte Tournament at the start of the year and ran through the field at the Tippecanoe Valley Tournament to win the tilt there Sept. 19. They ran up a 6-1 NSC record, finishing second in the
conference only to No. 7-ranked New Prairie, and following that loss to the Cougars, they rattled off a remarkable 20 straight wins, surrendering only three games to opponents in the process.
“After New Prairie, we won 20 straight, and that’s when we really grew up and started to come together as a team,” Skelly said.
“They’re doing things that they’re just doing them, and I’ve never seen a Knox team do. It’s been an awesome season, and I’m just really proud of them.”
In the process of its long run, the team accumulated a program-record 26 wins and has since raised that tally to 30 against the toughest schedule the Class 3A school has had to face. Of the Redskins’ mere six losses this year, three came at the hands of ranked teams and the other three were to Class 4A programs.
“We’ve had an outstanding season, and teams that we have lost to, at that time and at that day, they were the better team,” said Skelly.
“I can’t say that about every team I’ve had in the past.
“When I was making these changes to beef up our schedule, I went to our AD and said ‘This is what we need to do to be successful in our tournament.’ I never would have expected to have 30 wins at this point in the season.”
The Redskins have a challenging road ahead of them as they try to reach the 31-win mark Saturday in a Twin Lakes Regional opener against No. 4 Mishawaka Marian, which beat Plymouth in four games last weekend to win its fourth straight sectional crown.
“They’re an outstanding program,” Skelly said of the Knights.
“They’ve been state runners up, what, three years in a row? But putting that aside, our best defense is our offense to get them out of their system. We’re going have to play really a flawless match, and we’re also really going to have to focus on our defense because we’re not playing any Joe-Shmoe team.
“Our girls have never won a sectional. They’ve never been in this position, I’ve never been in this position as a coach, and (Marian) has been here many times. It’s definitely a step in the right direction for us. It’s a great opportunity for us to play a great-caliber team in the tournament.”
Whatever the outcome at Saturday’s regional, Skelly is confident his girls will “leave it all on the court,” and they can hold their heads high in the knowledge that they’ve already done so much to energize their program and their community.
And with only one senior on this year’s squad, it could be just the start of even bigger things to come.
“They’re starting to get excited about volleyball. That’s what I’ve been striving for since I’ve been here,” said Skelly. “We’re starting to become a volleyball community, and I attribute it to this group.”