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No. 4 Tritons take Tigers’ best shot

By Ross Thede 5 min read

The Marshalltown Community College volleyball team started to see the fruits of its labor, but not enough to fill the bushel basket.

Fourth-ranked Iowa Central resisted the Tigers' best attempt at an upset during the second set of Thursday's 3-0 Triton sweep over MCC at the Student Activity Center.

Iowa Central (23-2, 8-0) ran its win streak to six-straight while remaining undefeated in Iowa Community College Athletic Conference play with a 25-16, 26-24, 25-11 victory in front of a surprisingly non-partisan hometown crowd.

Three former area preps arrived on the team bus from Fort Dodge to play in front of family and friends from their nearby hometowns. Marshalltown graduate Madison Rogers, BCLUW alumna Grace Farnsworth, and Gladbrook-Reinbeck graduate Braelynn Morgan returned to a familiar part of the state, but in their new navy and white uniforms.

It was a welcome return "home" for those Tritons, who took down the host Tigers (7-7, 2-6) despite a considerable challenge in the second set.

Iowa Central has lost only one set during ICCAC play, but Marshalltown had them on the verge of another on Thursday night.

"I really have been challenging this team of what they need to be doing on the court together as a team to make sure that we are playing the best volleyball that we're capable of," said MCC head coach Carlee Flack. "We as coaches believe in them, so they have to finally just believe in themselves that they're capable of it.

"That's a nationally ranked team, so we feel good going neck-and-neck with them, however getting past that hump and actually winning a game would be great."

It marked the Tigers' second 3-0 loss of the week to a ranked team, falling to No. 17 DMACC on Tuesday in Boone. DMACC (11-10, 6-2) is the only team in the nation to beat No. 2-ranked Cowley County (23-1), which has handed No. 4 Iowa Central both of its losses this fall.

MCC nearly became only the second conference opponent to take a game from the Tritons, but the opportunity escaped.

"We did so many good things," Flack said. "We've talked about getting more of our hitters involved. We've been really putting in the time in practice of making sure we're putting up effective blocks and making sure that our defense is being aggressive, and we saw all of that (tonight).

"But again, I always want more from them, and I think they have more. They just have to be able to put that out there."

For a lot of that second set, the Tigers' best play was on full display. Four different hitters had kills during Game 2, and unfortunate errors were erased by superlative plays. MCC's leading hitter Morghan Harvey had just two kills during the set, but the Tigers were in the back-and-forth battle every step of the way.

MCC trailed 7-3 in the early stages of the set, but the growing connection between setter Isabelle Rawlins (Newton) and middle hitter Stella Remer (Ida Grove) was undeniable. Remer scored four kills during an 8-2 Tiger surge that build an 11-9 lead for the home team.

"There's just a lot of those things that we've been hitting hard in practice and making sure that they're getting enough reps on it so that we can do that in a match," Flack said. "That's why the second set was so good: getting other hitters involved, and that's exactly what we did. We got our middle going and she took probably four kills in a row, so that was good for us."

Iowa Central returned fire behind the conference's leading hitter, Cooper Griffin, who had three kills in the Tritons' subsequent 6-1 run to regain a 15-12 advantage. Their lead never grew beyond three, and MCC battled back to tie at 14-all after a kill by Harvey and an ace for Addie Ratcliff.

Kampbell Bryte tallied a kill for Iowa Central and a center-line violation on the Tigers provided the Tritons with their final point.

The third set was a decided letdown for MCC and ended after just seven minutes of action.

"We talked about obviously the things that we were doing well in that second set that brought us neck-and-neck with them," Flack said, "and then we obviously talked about the things that we started doing -- falling back into our old ways that left us down in a set 11-to-25.

"The big thing for us is making sure that we're still earning the points that we need to be earning and then willingly take any points that they're gonna give us. But don't expect them to come out and make the same mistakes that they were making."

Griffin finished with a match-high 16 kills to lead Iowa Central, while Bryte had 10 and Rylyn McCarty added eight. Rogers, the former Bobcat, contributed four kills and one block in the win.

Farnsworth, a former Times-Republican All-Area Player of the Year, took the court in the third set and had just three attack attempts. The former Comet standout had two digs and one block. G-R's Morgan, a sophomore middle blocker, did not play.

Harvey led MCC with nine kills and 10 digs to go with two solo blocks, while Remer finished with five kills and one block. Amira Cowell contributed four kills, eight digs and a team-leading three blocks, while Ratcliff had two kills and one block.

Lesly Yismel Valentin Marte, the Tigers' libero, had nine digs, while Rawlins finished with 21 assists.

Marshalltown is back at home again Monday for a 6 p.m. match against the Grand View University's junior varsity squad.

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