The Crawfordsville Athenians are taking a road trip to challenge the Danville Warriors at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Crawfordsville is probably headed into the match with a chip on their shoulder considering Covington just ended the team's 12-match winning streak on Thursday. They fell just short of the Trojans by a score of 3-2. While the Athenians didn't get the win, they did start the game off strong, beating the Trojans 25-19 in the first set.
Crawfordsville actually scored more points across those five sets (107-105), but sadly they still had to settle for second. The final score came out to 19-25, 25-21, 25-22, 20-25, 16-14.
Despite the loss, Crawfordsville saw an underclassman step up: sophomore Alexis Ratcliff had 13 digs and two aces. The team also got some help courtesy of Aliyah Brost, who had four digs and four aces.
Meanwhile, Danville earned a 2-0 victory over Jasper on Saturday.
Danville easily took the second set, but they let things get interesting in the other. The match finished with set scores of 25-21, 25-14.
Danville's win bumped their record up to 18-10. As for Crawfordsville, their defeat dropped their record down to 20-9.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Thursday's contest: Crawfordsville has really dialed in their serving this season, having averaged 7.8 aces per game. However, it's not like Danville struggles in that department as they've been averaging an even more impressive 7.4 aces. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Crawfordsville suffered a grim 3-0 defeat to Danville when the teams last played back in October of 2024. Can the Athenians avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
