Seymour’s Addi Lemon fakes a pass and hits the ball over the net against Brownstown on Tuesday night.
Jennifer Regruth | For The Tribune
A good crowd filled into Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium on Tuesday night to witness the Owls and Braves do battle on the volleyball court.
Half the stands were black and red, while the other side was purple and white. It was the fans donning the purple and white that had more to cheer about as Seymour was able to sweep Brownstown Central in three sets 25-17, 25-8, 25-15.
It also was senior night for the Owls, who were able to honor Olivia Fish, Cali Cummings and Addi Lemon before the game.
“It meant a lot for all of our kids, but especially for our seniors,” head coach Angie Lucas said. “All three teams winning is great for our program because Brownstown is a great program. We just pulled together and did really great.”
Seymour jumped out to a 10-3 lead in the first set before Brownstown head coach Jennifer Shade called a timeout. Late in the first set, the Braves were able to rally off six straight points thanks to some strong blocks from Addison Darlage and a few kills by Sophie Wischmeier. They cut Seymour’s lead to 21-15 and forced Lucas to call a timeout.
The Owls built up a big enough lead to hold on to the first set 25-17 after Lemon faked a pass and finessed the ball over her head onto Brownstown’s side of the floor.
“We want her to be aggressive,” Lucas said of Lemon. “I don’t mind that she does that. She has done a lot of great things for us.”
One of the more entertaining points of the match came early in the second set when Fish went up for a kill, Kinzee Dean and Brailey Teipen went up and blocked it and their block ricocheted the ball off of Fish’s head over the net for an Owls point.
“I haven’t seen anything like that,” Lucas said, “but it worked for us.”
That point gave Seymour a 3-2 lead, and then the Owls rolled from there, winning the second set 25-8.
“Just a Seymour game at Seymour, I think that makes it hard,” Shade said of Tuesday’s struggles. “It’s not just any volleyball game. It’s a county rivalry, and the kids just get a little more nervous.”
The Owls jumped out to a lead in the third set, as well, but the Braves showed much more fight when they got down on the scoreboard. An ace by Wischmeier cut the deficit to 17-13 for Brownstown.
“In the third set, we started to figure some things out a little bit,” Shade said. “We’re playing a 4A school. We’ve got a lot of work to do before sectional.”
Then Seymour only allowed two more points from there, and Katherine Veatch ended the third set with an ace, 25-15.
In the match, the Braves served 39-41 with one ace and hit 83-99 with 21 kills. The Owls served 69-70 with 11 aces and hit 77-84 with 38 kills.
Wischmeier led Brownstown in hitting, going 26-28 with five kills. Darlage hit 10-12 with two kills, and Teipen hit 11-11 with two kills.
For Seymour, Fish hit 31-32 with 13 kills, Cummings went 11-15 with eight kills and Journee Brown went 9-9 with six kills. Fish had four aces, Greer Henry had three and Breanna Lawrence had three. Lemon had 32 assists, and Henry had 18 digs.
“We took them out of their offense,” Lucas said. “I was very proud of our kids with their service. I thought back row passing was good. Our first pass in general looked good and controlled.”
In the JV match, Seymour won 25-17, 25-20.
For the Braves’ JV, Genna Preston had eight kills, and Haley Derringer had six. Claire Brelage had two aces. Maddie Schrader had 13 kills to lead the Owls, Emerson Johnson had four and Abby Otte had three. Jamie Bobb and Otte each had four aces, Otte had 16 assists and Schrader had six digs.
Seymour also won the C team match 25-16, 25-16. Erica Warren led Brownstown with six kills, Mairi Shaw had three and Olivia Justice had one. Warren also had one ace. Bailey Barr led the Owls with five kills, while Claire Urbanski had four. Barr had three aces, while Kennady Hardman had seven assists and 10 digs.
The Braves will now be off until Monday when they play at Scottsburg. It will be just the second match for Brownstown in the last two weeks.
“Sometimes, it’s hard because you want to stay in the flow of playing,” Shade said. “We’ve had to simulate a lot of game-like stuff in practice. It’s good for us. We’ll go back (today) and just work hard in practice and just be prepared for sectional.”
The sectional draw for volleyball will be this Sunday.
Like the Braves, the Owls also have high hopes for sectional. Seymour is 24-4 and currently on a 13-match winning streak, which is similar to the one they had a season ago.
“We’re more confident at this point in our season. I think that’s because of the leadership of those three seniors that we talked about. They work hard every day, they do what I ask of them, they want this really bad,” Lucas said. “I don’t know what the gym is going to look like without those three kids, Liv, Addi and Cali, not in here.”