High School Sports

Girard sweeps Hubbard

GIRARD -- Last season, Girard senior Bailey Walters ran the Indians' offense.

As a setter, she was responsible for assisting on points for the team's hitters. In one contest, she even broke the school record for assists in a single match.

However, her role has changed this year, and now Walters is one of the focal points of Girard's attacking system as an outside hitter.

"Bailey's my second child to go through this. Morgan (Walters) did the same thing for me. Both of them grew up with a volleyball in their hands, so they're very versatile, and I can use them wherever I need them," Girard head coach Phil Walters said. "When you coach high school, you have holes every year that you need to fill. It was the right fit to move her to the outside, and she's actually doing a lot better than I anticipated."

Walters helped spearhead the Indians' attack on Thursday night, leading the team with 22 kills as Girard completed a 3-0 (25-20, 25-15, 25-19) sweep against Hubbard in Northeast-8 Conference play.

"They just outpassed us. They were in system more than we were," Hubbard head coach Greg Powell said. "Bailey -- I don't know how many points she got serving, but she just kind of served us off the court for awhile, then they'd get a four- or five-point lead offensively. When we were in system, we were fine with them. It was a good match, and Phil runs a great program, but basically that was it -- their defense and passing was better than ours."

It helped aid Bailey's transition to hitter that Girard had a talented freshman setter join the team this year in Chloe Plant, who finished with 35 assists against the Eagles.

"She's got great hands, and she's been running the offense. So it just worked out," coach Walters said. "We tried a few things in the summer, but this is what worked."

Senior Nico Cochran holds down the other outside hitter spot for Girard, while fellow senior Alexis Pieton fills out the middle. Cochran had 11 kills, as Pieton tallied five kills and three blocks for the Indians on Thursday.

The attacking play of that group of seniors is a big part of how the Indians have gotten off to an 8-1 start this season.

"Anytime you have a senior, the kids that have been around for a while, you know what you're getting," coach Walters said. "Some of the best teams I've ever had in my 25 years of being here have been senior heavy. Sometimes you have to struggle through some years to get to that point. But when you're senior heavy and you have major role players in the senior class, it's always a good thing."

Against Hubbard, Girard began slow in each of the first two sets.

In the first set, the Eagles won the first few points, but the Indians quickly recovered with a 15-6 run to seize control. Some unforced errors cost Girard and Hubbard was able to keep things close in the first set. Still, Walters' service points allowed the Indians to finish off the set 25-20.

Hubbard finally started to find its offensive system in the second set, as it jumped out to a 10-5 lead. But the Indians rallied with a 7-0 run and eventually finished off the set 25-15 in the same way they got back into it -- with a 7-0 run.

"Typically we've been a slow starting team, but we've gotten over that hump," coach Walters said. "We had an amazing match last night with Mineral Ridge -- a great team, and we just came out on fire. I would have liked to have matched that fire, but unfortunately this happens. We started a few points down, but we've always done a great job of playing through it. ... This season, we've been able to maintain keeping our unforced errors to a minimum. We did start a little slow, but I don't think that bothered them at all, and they went right to work."

In the third set, Girard avoided the slow starts that had hurt them in the previous two sets, running ahead 11-5. Hubbard tightened things up, however, and clinging to a slim advantage late in the frame, the Indians steadied and closed out the three-set sweep 25-19.

"My team played hard," Powell said. "We were coming in here as an underdog anyway. ... Like I tell my girls, it's okay to get beat, as long as you don't quit. (Girard) was all-around the better team tonight."

Have an interesting story? Contact Neel Madhavan by email at nmadhavan@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @NeelMadhavan.