Panthers advance in regional

PERRY — Creston doesn’t play many volleyball matches with a height advantage in its rugged Hawkeye Ten schedule, so Tuesday’s Class 4A Region 7 opener presented a rare opportunity.

The Panthers used an aggressive hitting attack to defeat Perry, 25-14, 20-25, 25-10, 25-18. Perry, finishing its season at 15-17, featured 5-foot-4 Charity Parnell as its leading hitter (106 kills) and 5-6 Miley Sanchez as the top blocker.

“I told the girls before the match you’re doing something tonight you’ve never done before,” Creston coach Naomi Sharp said. “They said, ‘Winner first round!’ I said, OK, you’re doing two things you’ve never done before: win, and you’re going to play a team that’s shorter than you. All of our hitters played aggressively at the net, due to that.”

Jaycee Hanson, Creston’s junior 5-8 outside hitter, and sophomore 5-7 middle hitter Hope Henderson led the attack with 12 kills each. Juniors Ella Turner an Hollynn Rieck combined for 14 more as the varied attack took its toll on a scrappy Perry defense.

“I said we have to come out and play our game, which is aggressive volleyball and hitting the ball hard,” Sharp said. “I knew if we kept hitting it, it would be to our advantage.”

Five-year drought

It was Creston’s first regional tournament victory since a 3-0 sweep of Osceola Clarke in the 2019 Class 3A regional tournament. (That year, the Panthers lost to Des Moines Christian, 3-1, in the second round.)

Creston (10-14) travels to No. 7-ranked Glenwood (34-6) in the second round at 7 p.m. Thursday. The Rams defeated the Panthers 3-0 in Hawkeye Ten play on Oct. 17, 25-14, 25-19, 25-19.

On the other side of the bracket, Winterset swept Des Moines Hoover to advance to Thursday’s regional semifinal at No. 8-ranked ADM. The regional final is Oct. 29 at the highest-ranked team’s home court.

Hanson said the Panthers played with confidence, knowing there wasn’t a wall of 6-foot blockers across the net. She said the team rallied from the second set loss with more intensity down the stretch. Hanson, Henderson and Turner combined for four kills in taking the final set from 20-16 to 25-18 to finish the victory.

“We play a lot of teams that are taller at the net,” Hanson said. “We just lost the momentum for awhile, but we got it back in the third set. We were communicating more, and getting more out of system balls over the net. Some of the times we don’t finish it, but tonight we knew we really had to finish it. In the timeout (trailing 8-2 in set four) we said we just had to go. The game was ours, we just had to show it.”

Serving streak

Senior Ady Morrison served a 10-point run in the 25-10 third set win to propel the Panthers to the 2-1 lead in the match.

“Ady’s ball moves a lot,” Sharp said. “She’s a lefty with a floater serve and when she hits it, I think it has a lot of movement. It tends to swing one way or another at the end. She’s good at spot serving and Blair (assistant coach Blair Glendenning) is really good at calling spot serves. Blair trusts her and she trusts Blair.”

After Perry had tied the match 1-1 and the home crowd had ignited with excitement, Sharp sat down with her team to get them back on track.

“I said we’re not going through this again!” Sharp said. “We had to re-focus and get back in system so we can set up for a hit. We were getting more control with our hits, and our defense was good. We had a ton of digs tonight.”

Rieck had a team-high 29 digs, Hanson contributed 25 and libero Avery Staver handled several tough serves in totaling 17 digs. Senior Mila Kuhns was also part of the back row defensive effort, and Braylee Pokorny was a blocking presence in the middle.

Setter Kadley Bailey distributed the ball among all of the hitters with 44 assists to keep the Perry defense off balance, and added six kills on her deftly-placed setter dumps to open areas.

“We had to keep changing up where we were hitting it,” Sharp said. “They have a scrappy defense with a really good libero. We couldn’t hit it to one spot continuously. We made fewer errors tonight. We were more efficient with our hitting. Even if we didn’t hit it hard, we found (terminating) places.”

Creston 3, Perry 1

Serving (aces) Ady Morrison 21-22 (4), Avery Staver 15-15 (1), Jaycee Hanson 18-18 (2), Mila Kuhns 17-20 (1).

Setting assists — Kadley Bailey 44, Hollyn Rieck 5.

Blocks (solo-assists) — Braylee Pokorny 2-1, Hope Henderson 0-2, Ella Turner 0-1, Hanson 0-1, Bailey 0-1.

Kills — Hanson 12, Henderson 12, Turner 8, Rieck 6, Bailey 6.

Digs — Rieck 29, Hanson 25, Staver 17.