Springs Valley Community High School

After a long wait, the Springs Valley volleyball team finally entered postseason play on Thursday night, and in their IHSAA Sectional 63 opener against Orleans the Blackhawks were all business. They put the pedal to the floor from the start and ousted the Bulldogs 25-12, 25-9, 25-8 to advance to Saturday's semifinal round. “I thought they were very focused. We’ve had three great practices this week, we’ve talked a lot about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to perform and I thought they did that tonight,” Springs Valley coach Erin Carnes said. “It wasn’t always perfect and sometimes they got a little bit too relaxed, but they ended up getting the job done like I thought they would and we’re looking forward to Saturday.” The Blackhawks were led by Tynley Kluesner in their stomping of Orleans. The typically-quiet senior has come to life late in the season, putting together a string of strong performances that continued on Thursday. Against the Bulldogs she had a team-high 12 kills, easily a season-high, and her 26 kills over the last three matches has easily been her best three-match span as an attacking player this season. One of the biggest factors in that uptick of production is that she’s having fun doing it. “When she’s having a good time, she usually plays well. She never says a word, but tonight between sets two and three she said she was having fun and you could tell it,” Carnes said. “When she’s relaxed and having a good time she does very well and she’s hard to stop and tonight she was.” Late in Thursday’s match, Springs Valley got the chance to enter a pair of underclassmen into the match and took it. Elynn Hughes and Maci Eckerty, dressing for a varsity match for the very first time, each made their varsity debut against Orleans as well. It was a much-deserved reward for the work the pair has put in for Springs Valley’s junior varsity team this season and was received with loud cheers from their teammates. “It’s always a special moment for kids. I wish I could have given them a little bit more time, but that’s just the way that volleyball goes with rotations and having to wait for that opening,” Carnes said. “I think they were a bit nervous, I called their names and they kind of gave me that deer in the headlights look. I told them to just get out there and that they’d be fine. They got to touch a few balls and I thought they held their own really well.” In those late-match moments, Springs Valley’s upperclassmen got an opportunity to direct traffic a little bit. With Hughes and Eckerty entering in a bit of a daze, players like Kluesner and Leigh Carnes did what they could to make things easier on them. “It doesn’t surprise me, that’s just who they are. It’s kind of like that passing the torch moment even though it’s not quite that time yet,” Erin Carnes said. “The seniors and the upperclassmen that we have, they’re just good leaders all around and in a time like that they knew that they kind of had to mother for a second and I thought they did that and got everybody calmed down.” Springs Valley (27-4, 6-0 PLAC) has built up quite a bit of momentum now with 10 wins in a row over the past month or so and it will need every bit of it to claim the sectional title on Saturday. The Blackhawks will take their next step in that effort in the second semifinal game on Saturday, estimated to begin around 12:30 p.m., and their opponent will be a dangerous one. They’ll take on Loogootee, one of the top 10 teams in Class 1A depending on the poll, and in order to repeat their four-set win over the Lions from earlier this season they’ll have to crank it up a notch defensively. “Our defense is going to have to step up quite a bit. Tonight it was pretty lax because Orleans was giving us quite a few free balls, but Loogootee’s going to run an offense and they’re going to run it consistently,” Erin Carnes said. “Hopefully we can throw a wrench in that and keep them out of system a bit, but they’re going to hit the ball more than Orleans did tonight, they’re going to serve a little bit tougher, and they’re going to block a little bit more. Orleans did that well tonight and I didn’t feel like we covered very well. There are going to be little aspects that we have to clamp up and fix before Saturday.” SPRINGS VALLEY 3, ORLEANS 0 Springs Valley 25 25 25 — 3 Orleans 12 9 8 — 0 Springs Valley: Tynley Kluesner 12 kills, 6 digs, 1 block, 1 ace; Maddie Carnes 8 kills, 26 assists, 6 digs, 1 ace; Bella Nottger 7 kills, 3 digs, 1 block, 4 aces; Leigh Carnes 6 kills, 10 assists, 2 digs, 1 block, 3 aces; Alayna Denbo 3 kills, 5 kills; Brynne Buchanan 3 kills, 8 digs, 2 aces; Molly Tucker 6 digs, 1 ace.