C-M volleyball outlasts Keota in five-set thriller

COLFAX — Colfax-Mingo junior Trinity Smith is one of the best players in the South Iowa Cedar League. Getting to her believe that is not always easy.

But Smith’s play during a five-set match against Keota on Thursday aligned almost directly with how the Tigerhawks played.

Smith was not as effective in the first two sets against the Eagles, but stronger play in the final three games allowed Colfax-Mingo’s volleyball team to rally for a 20-25, 20-25, 25-14, 25-16, 15-12 home win during SICL play.

“In set three, we ran what we call shoot,” Colfax-Mingo head volleyball coach Michelle Grant said. “Which is a quick low set to Trinity that doesn’t always look great, but if it works can fire the team up. And she put the ball down at one point in the third set and it flipped her switch. Then the team was like ‘oh we can have some fun.’”

Smith was fantastic in the final three sets against Keota, but her teammates also had strong moments throughout the match.

Charlotte Donahue posted a career-high 33 digs in her first match as the libero, Madison Stackhouse secured a double-double and served up eight aces and the Tigerhawks tallied 12 blocks in the victory.

“We definitely needed it. We haven’t been winning much obviously, but I think we are a better team than we’ve shown so far,” Smith said. “We have really good players individually, but we don’t play together. We finally did that in the last two sets.”

The Tigerhawks (4-10 overall, 1-4 in the SICL) improved to 8-0 against Keota since 2015. This was the first time the two teams played five sets during that stretch.

Kills by Britney Keeney and Smith and a Donahue ace put Colfax-Mingo up 3-1 early in the first set.

But Keota used a 5-0 run, including back-to-back aces by Kimberly Clarahan, to go in front 10-7. The Eagles never trailed again and led by as many as eight the rest of the way.

“When we are down, sometimes we just need to put the ball in play,” Grant said. “We can’t get three points from one ace. We are trying to do too much with one ball.”

The second set was fairly similar to the opener. C-M held a brief lead early, but Keota (7-10, 1-5) used a 6-0 run to go in front 7-2.

The Tigerhawks got within 10-8 on a combo block by Keeney and Smith and 11-9 on a blast by Keeney, but the Eagles pushed their lead to 17-12 and 20-14 later. C-M couldn’t get closer than five after that.

“We didn’t trust each other and we had bad communication,” Smith said. “All of it was our errors and dumb mistakes. We weren’t good with fundamentals.”

The third set did not start promising for the home team. The Tigerhawks trailed 6-1, but a strong service run by Stackhouse pushed C-M to the lead. Multiple aces during the stretch helped C-M to a 16-9 lead and a kill by Addie Schroeder made it 17-9.

Back-to-back kills by Keeney made it 22-11 and the hosts finished off the win a few points later to stay alive.

The Tigerhawks finished 97-of-105 in serves with 13 aces. Stackhouse’s service run was one of the turning points in the match.

“It definitely made us realize we can still win,” Smith said. “We were two sets behind, but we can still come back and win.”

C-M carried momentum into the fourth and used it to build an 8-2 lead. That early stretch included a kill and a block by Smith, a blast from Keeney and another ace from Stackhouse.

The Tigerhawks stayed in front 10-4 on an ace by Smith, got an ace from Donahue to extend the margin to 14-7 and a block and a kill on back-to-back points by Grace Hunsberger pushed the advantage to 20-12.

The set ended with a Smith ace and a punch by Katelyn Steenhoek.

One of the lineup changes was replacing Donahue in the middle with Hunsberger, who saw significant varsity action for the first time in her career.

She rewarded Grant and the coaching staff with two kills and five blocks.

“I like the new lineup,” Grant said. “I think Charlotte has played every single position in her four years. Charlotte likes to play at the net, but we need her at libero. Grace played well today. She made some mistakes, but she was effective.”

The fifth set wasn’t really ever that close. The Tigerhawks opened with a 5-1 advantage after Donahue sent the ball over with a left-handed stab that found an open space.

A pair of kills by Smith made it 7-2 and 8-3 and Steenhoek’s kill later put the Tigerhawks in front 10-7. A Keeney kill moments later got it to 11-8 and Smith ended the match with three kills on C-M’s final three points.

Smith finished with 20 kills, 16 digs, two blocks and two aces in the win, while Stackhouse added 30 assists, 18 digs and eight aces.

“The biggest message after set four was that we didn’t want to come all the back and play a fifth set only to lose,” Smith said. “I never think I play well. I didn’t think I would make that big of a difference at the beginning of the year, but I have noticed that whatever I’m doing is what the team does. I’m working on it. I don’t have a lot of confidence in myself, but I’m working on it.”

Grant said the team’s biggest issue with consistency right now comes from team chemistry. And many members of the team have trouble moving on to the next point and lack confidence in themselves.

“We focus on too much of what’s in the past. There is nothing we can do about that last play and if you are griping at the official then you are not moving on to the next play,” Grant said. “When the whistle blows, we need to move to the next play.

“When we finished the match, they all high-fived each other. They have never done that this year. Ever. But all of a sudden, when we win we like each other. Our team chemistry is our consistency problem.”

Donahue added four assists and two aces to her 33 digs, Schroeder tallied 22 digs and seven kills and Keeney put down eight kills and had two blocks.

Steenhoek finished with eight digs, two kills, two assists and two blocks and Kaylee Collins added eight digs.

The Tigerhawks were 97-of-105 in serves with Donahue serving 12-of-12 and Steenhoek going 11-of-11. Smith connected on 16-of-17.

Grace Conger led the Eagles with 10 assists, five digs, 21 digs and three aces and Izzi Chalupa added seven kills and 29 digs. Keota was 82-of-93 in serves with 11 aces.