Jackson volleyball outlasts Eureka

The Jackson Indians volleyball team took home a five-set thriller against the Wildcats of Eureka on Wednesday at Jackson High School. The regular season finale was a clash of two Class 5 teams with Jackson narrowly escaping to push their record to 25-6-3.

Almost every set of the match was close with Jackson winning the first 27-25 before Eureka grabbed a 25-16 victory. Jackson took the third 25-23 to regain the match lead but the Wildcats tied again in the fourth to force a final set. Again, this set was a back-and-forth affair with Jackson squeaking by 18-16.

Indians head coach Dave Mirly was proud of his team's resilience in a match lasting that long.

“I was talking to some coaches last week and I go, ‘We haven't even gone four sets all season except for the first game, I hope we're in good shape if it happens’, Mirly said. “Tonight proves how hard these young ladies work every practice because we never got tired the entire time and we've never been pushed and had to battle like this all season long.”

Each team saw their share of runs throughout the match, Jackson came back from down six to win the first set and Eureka returned the favor in the fourth, coming back from an 11-2 deficit to force that final set.

Nadia Wasilewski and Ella Domian led the team with 19 and 17 kills, respectively. Payton Gannon added to the offense with 26 assists while Holland Guilliams anchored the defense with 19 digs.

Mirly said the team never really got nervous even after blowing a big lead or making any mistakes.

“It wasn't as hard as you think with all these seniors out there, they really didn't get rattled. They got a little upset with themselves over some bad plays. But I mean, everybody does that, they're so mentally tough though that they were able to bounce back from that,” Mirly said. “What helped us so much tonight when we were scrambling a little bit is we practice scrambling all the time, so if we didn't make a good first pass we were used to it because we practice it a lot and that really, really paid off tonight.”

Another factor in this game was the crowd noise, even with Eureka being over two hours away they had a big number of fans. Jackson fans came out in droves to support and the student section made plenty of noise. It was a battle in the stands just as much as it was a battle on the court, Mirly said it was definitely a great atmosphere and it hyped up the team (and that the popsicles he brings the students help fill up the gym).

“They[J-Crue] keep getting bigger and bigger. I keep buying more popsicles and more popsicles every game. I'm gonna have to get a bigger cooler if they keep showing up and I will gladly do that,” Mirly said.

The Indians will open up play in the Class 5 District 1 tournament on Tuesday at Northwest (Cedar Hill) where they will take on the host Lions at 5 p.m.