BROWNSTOWN — Thursday was a showdown of neighboring counties in Jackson and Jennings on the volleyball court.
The Jennings County Panthers came to Brownstown Central for a match with the Braves pulling out the victory in four sets.
The girls grabbed the win over the Panthers 25-20, 25-21, 17-25, 25-23, improving to 13-10 in the regular season.
The Braves seized control of the game from the beginning and never let up, outlasting the Panthers in the fourth and final set to pull out the victory.
Brownstown head coach Jennifer Shade spoke about the win over the opponent.
“It’s a win,” she said. “The big thing we want to do is win some of these big games against these quality volleyball teams. It was good for us to win some of these games. I’m proud of the girls for how they competed and came out with the victory.”
Shade believes the team has made a ton of progress since the start of this season.
“We’ve come a long way from the beginning of the season,” she said. “We have improved in massive ways. Our biggest thing is cutting out on errors. When we cut errors that we make ourselves, we will start to win more big matches.”
The Braves were led in serving by Sophie Wischmeier, Finley Wheeler and Kinzee Dean. Wischmeier was 20 for 20 with three aces in the win, Wheeler went 16 for 16 with one ace and Dean was 11 for 11 with one ace. The team went 83 for 87 with seven aces.
Wischmeier, Dean and Addie Darlage led the team in hitting statistics. Wischmeier went 33 for 36 with 13 kills, Dean was 11 for 13 with eight kills and Darlage was 29 for 34 with five kills in the victory. The team was 106 of 120 with 40 kills in total throughout the win over the Panthers.
The JV Braves also faced off with Jennings County, winning 25-11, 25-20. The team improved to 10-4 on the season.
The team serving numbers were 39 of 43 with two aces, and hitting numbers were 38 of 46 with 22 kills.
Brownstown prepares for the Jackson County showdown with rival Seymour on Tuesday at Brownstown Central High School.
JV will start things off at 5:30 p.m., followed by varsity at 7 p.m. It’s the only game for the Braves next week.
“It’s always a big rivalry with Seymour,” Shade said. “It’s always a fun week when we play the Owls. It will be a good time for our girls to rest, as well. It will be important before we head into our final push before the postseason.”
Following the game with Seymour, Brownstown will have three more games left in the season — all Mid-Southern Conference matches.
On Oct. 2, the Braves will host Scottsburg at 5:30 p.m. The girls will then travel to North Harrison the next day to face the Cougars at 5:30 p.m. before finishing the season Oct. 5 at home against Salem.