Winning Over the Polls

Is central Indiana volleyball on an upswing? "I think so," veteran Center Grove coach Deb McClurg said. "You are seeing a lot of kids from central Indiana being recruited for college. I think Indiana is becoming one of the top states in the nation for volleyball players. The facts back up McClurg's statement. Heading into the IHSAA state tournament, volleyball in central Indiana seems to have peaked. There were three teams ranked in the top 10 in the Class 4A polls led by No. 1 Cathedral. Other area schools ranked at the 4A level include No. 3 Avon and No. 8 Center Grove. In the Class 3A polls, No. 5 Bishop Chatard leads a trio of private schools with No. 6 Brebuef Jesuit and No. 7 Roncalli right behind. The high school season, however, is just a small part of why volleyball in central Indiana is experiencing an upsurge. "Club volleyball is the determining factor to most program's success," Avon coach Scott McQueen said. "The more players you have playing at the top clubs, the better your program is year-in and year-out." McQueen has been the director of the Circle City Club program for the past four years. He's finishing his seventh season in charge of the Avon program and sees a direct relationship between club success and high school success. "The girls, who play at the club level, have a definite advantage because they are just exposed to more volleyball," he said. "It's like any sport, the more you play the better you are going to be." Central Indiana is ripe with some of the best volleyball players in the state. Cathedral has a dangerous duo in seniors Christina Gray and Mary Ording, while Avon counters with its own tandem of Katie Griffin and Holly Wasmund. Heading into tournament play, Griffin led the area with 5.36 kills per game and her 407 kills on the season were 130 kills more than Park Tudor's Lyndsey Holt, who averaged 4.69 kills per game. Lawrence North's Jordanne Scott had the most overall kills with 415, but her 4.46 average ranked third in the area. Defensive play has been essential for Cathedral. Gray led the area with 2.28 blocks per game while Ording ranked third with 1.96 blocks. "Team play, serving and passing are big factors in a team's success, but defense always rules," McClurg said. The lower classes also had a heavy central Indiana flavor with No. 5 Heritage Christian and No. 7 Park Tudor ranked in Class 2A and No. 8 Lutheran and No. 10 Morristown in the Class A polls. In the past five years, eight state champions have come from central Indiana. Last year was the only year of those five where a state champion did not come from the metropolitan Indianapolis area. Two years ago, Cathedral captured its fifth state title, and Roncalli won its third. Cathedral also ranks third in the state in state runner-up honors with three and the most recent in 2005. Brebeuf Jesuit has won two 3A state titles in the past five years (2003 and 2005), while Bishop Chatard captured the 3A state championship in 2004. "This is a lifetime sport and the exposure volleyball received at the Olympics was huge," said McClurg, who led Center Grove to the 2000 Class 4A state title. "Plus girls can see that other girls are receiving college scholarships, and when you see players going off to play volleyball in college, it just creates that much more interest in the sport." While Delaware County is the clear leader in the state with 29 overall state champions, Marion County has produced 12 state champions since the sport became sanctioned by the Indiana High School Athletic Association in 1972. In that year, Ben Davis was state runner-up. The nine-county central Indiana area also has produced 14 state champions and eight state runner-ups. "I'd say over the past five years the sport has really grown," said McQueen, who led Franklin High School to a state runner-up in 2001. "I think you can relate that to the growing numbers of clubs in the area, but another key is just having girls who are dedicated to being top players." Other top players in the area, who play club and high school volleyball, include Center Grove's Bethany Irwin and Chelsea Kirkpatrick, Westfield's Hillary Eppink, Brebeuf's Sloan White, Carmel's Maggie Harbison, the Roncalli duo of Caitlin Hansen and Alexis Waugh and the Brownsburg tandem of Lauren Baumet and Bailey Yeager. "Certainly, champions are made in the off season," McClurg said. "All the teams at the top will tell you that." -