Kenzie Knuckles
Yorktown defeated Delta at Delta High School Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015.
MUNCIE — The Yorktown Tigers walked into a back hallway outside Delta’s gym in an unfamiliar position early Saturday afternoon.
A team which had lost just five sets in 34 matches was down 2-1 to rival Delta, its season on the line in the Delta Sectional semifinals.
Assistant coach Rhonda Murr spoke up. Then head coach Stephanie Bloom stepped in. The top-ranked Tigers hadn’t been flustered much in a nearly perfect season to that point, and the gaudy national ranking (No. 18 in MaxPreps’ Xcellent 25) and months atop the Class 3A state poll were insignificant.
Backs against the wall, the Tigers rode the attacking prowess of freshman Kenzie Knuckles to come back for a 3-2 (23-25, 25-16, 22-25, 25-12, 15-9) win over No. 5 Delta to advance to Saturday night’s sectional championship against Guerin Catholic (16-17).
“(Coach Bloom) definitely put us in check,” Knuckles said of the conversation before the fourth set. “She told us we have to buy in; we have to fight because that’s what we’re known for, our grit.”
“Coach Murr came in right before, and she told us you have to be ready for this. They’re not going to shut down, and they can beat us.”
Despite a valiant effort led by Audrey Woodin (17 kills, 21 digs), the Eagles didn’t beat the Tigers – in large part due to Knuckles, who finished with 28 kills and 18 digs. Mimi Arrington (47 assists) set Knuckles on the outside, in the back row – basically wherever as the match went on. Knuckles had six kills in the final set alone, the last of which capped a 6-2 run to put Yorktown up 12-7.
Swing after swing, Knuckles relentlessly attacked, and the Eagles dug many of her hits as Gabby Zgunda had 22 of their 87 digs. But Knuckles never tired, and neither did the Tigers.
“We do box jumps in practices,” Knuckles said, “and it’s basically for that fifth game to keep us going.”
Kate Avila added 13 kills for the Tigers (34-1), while Olivia Reed had 10 – including the match-winner.
What turned the match around for Yorktown? Defense.
“When we were playing in the two sets we lost, we were playing not to lose, you know?” said libero Jade York, who tallied 38 digs. “We were kind of timid on balls, and coach Bloom just told us, ‘Hey, defense is our game, this is what we have to do.’
“In the sets that we did win, I thought we played very gritty and didn’t let anything hit the floor. We stayed focused and together as a team, which definitely helped us succeed in that set.”
Chloe Stitt added 12 kills and 12 digs for Delta (24-11), which suffered its third loss this month to Yorktown. The Eagles were swept in the first two, including in the Delaware County Tournament championship, but Delta coach Heidi Zickgraf called this the team’s best match of the season, one day after she said it had the best practice of the season.
Delta pushed Yorktown in a way few have been able to all season.
“I told them before the match to leave it all out on the floor, and they did that,” Zickgraf said. “We gave them our best shot.
“We defended, never gave up, and we gave them all they wanted.”
For a Yorktown team which also got key plays at the net from Kendall Murr and Rhyen Neal, it’s fair to wonder if that loss to Central on Sept. 26 was beneficial, as Bloom had predicted it would be several weeks ago.
“We had taken a loss before, so we knew how to handle it,” York said. “We just had to stay focused. We couldn’t think about being down, we had to play with everything we had.”
Contact sports features writer Ryan O’Gara at (765) 213-5829. Follow him on Twitter @RyanOGaraTSP.