By Dylan Wallace
The Brownstown volleyball team returned home Tuesday night and came away with a sweep of Corydon Central 25-21, 25-15, 25-10.
Despite the win, Brownstown didn’t get off the best start on Tuesday.
The Panthers were up 8-5 early before Jennifer Shade called a timeout to talk things over with her team.
Trailing 10-6, Brownstown went on a 4-0 run to even things up. The big run for the Braves came when they were down 14-12 and went on a 5-0 run that featured two-straight aces from Erin Singleton to take a 17-14 lead.
But Corydon wouldn’t go away. After calling timeout, the Panthers scored three-straight points to even things up at 17.
Brownstown gained just enough of an edge to take the first set, finished off by a kill from Kelsey Wischmeier.
“We weren’t in our sync right in the beginning,” Shade said. “We had to get our heads on a little bit straight.”
Shade called the self-inflicted mistakes frustrating and a common theme for Brownstown this season, and it’s been a point of emphasis in practice.
The Braves cleaned things up in the second set, though, jumping out to an 8-4 lead and never looking back.
Their lead ballooned from there as they won the set 25-15 after a long rally ended in a Nadia Lakins kill.
Shade said the team has been working on being aggressive and putting the ball away in practice, and that’s what the Braves did in the final two sets.
The third set was much of the same. Brownstown led 7-1 before Corydon head coach Chrissy Tuchscherer called a timeout.
But there was nothing the Panthers could do to slow down Brownstown in the third set. The Braves rolled to a 25-10 win, completing the sweep of Corydon.
“I was pleased with the way things progressed,” Shade said. “When you get a team down, you stomp them in the ground. That’s what I said. You want to make sure when you make a couple good plays, you don’t make three-straight errors and let a team like that back into the ballgame.”
The Braves served well, going 66-74 with 11 aces. Erin Singleton was 19-20 with 3 aces, Kalee Borden was 12-14 with 4 aces and Rylee May was 14-17 with 3 aces.
In hitting, Brownstown was 85-96 with 36 kills. Leading the Braves’ attack was Lakins going 27-28 with 16 kills. Behind her was Wischmeier at 21-25-12 and then Borden at 18-20-6.
Before Brownstown’s varsity took care of business, the Braves JV team did the same, defeating Corydon 25-5, 25-12.
The JV squad served 44-49 with 15 aces and hit 38-43 with 23 aces.
On Saturday, Brownstown’s JV team will be competing in the Ind. Roncalli Tournament at 9 a.m. while the varsity team will be at the New Albany Invite on Saturday at 9 a.m. as well.
There will be a lot of good teams in New Albany, and the Braves will have the chance to get some revenge against some teams from earlier in the season.
“We can go back and battle a couple of those teams,” Shade said. “It is good competition. I’d rather take a million losses and play good competition than get a bunch of wins that don’t make you better, and that’s what our schedule does.”