The battle of two Sagamore Conference unbeaten teams favored Western Boone in a 3-1 (25-18, 20-25, 25-10, 25-14) Stars win at Crawfordsville on Tuesday night.
“They (Crawfordsville) tested us a lot tonight,” Western Boone coach Laura Braggs said. “They’re such a good team and with a dangerous hitter like Macy (Bruton) on the outside. We just tried to work at a quick pace because we thought that’s where we had the advantage with our hitters.”
A hitter as powerful as Bruton is for the Athenians (fourth in the state with 400 kills entering Tuesday night), the Stars front line sent numerous Bruton kill attempts back over the net and converted them into blocks.
“We knew that most of the balls were going to go toward her so that’s what our girls keyed in on and they did a great job,” Braggs said. “What I love about our team is we have so many good hitters, so they couldn’t focus on just one of girls because every single one of them can put it down at any time.”
“They have a lot of good athletes on that front line,” Crawfordsville coach Kelly Johnson said. “They did a nice job of getting down the line and they’re hard to get a ball down on them. I was happy that we were able to get one set from them. Our girls played hard tonight, and you can’t ask for more than that.”
Bruton led the Athenians with 22 digs 18 kills, and two aces. Laine Schlicher set-up the offense with 32 assists and added 14 digs. Halle Elliot recorded 14 digs while Olivia Reed added 10 digs of her own. Hallie Gayler finished with eight kills.
“They’re a great team,” Johnson said of the Stars who move to 16-6 (5-0 SAC) on the season. “A majority of their girls play year-round volleyball, and you can tell that makes them a great program.”
Crawfordsville, who is coming off a 3-0 county win over Southmont on Monday night, was playing for the third time in four days against the Stars. The Athenians still have two more games this week as they travel to SAC foes Danville on Thursday and Tri-West on Saturday.
“We played an emotional game last night and had to turn around and play another one tonight,” Johnson said. “We just have to keep moving on from here.”
Western Boone will be back at home Thursday as they host North Montgomery.
