By Fred Solis
Special to The Hutchinson Tribune
ANDALE—Two Andale volleyball players celebrated three career milestones last week as senior Hayden Grimes notched her 1,000th kill and 1,000th dig, and junior Abbi Winter rang up her 1,000th assist.
Together, the pair helped the Indians down Wellington 2-0 and Augusta 2-0 and propelled Andale to a 25-1 season record and No. 2 4A state ranking with a final home triangular set for Oct. 14 against Rose Hill and El Dorado.
As impressive as Grimes and Winter’s accomplishments are, it’s even more notable that they’ve effectively reached the milestones in three seasons, said Coach Scott Johnson.
“Hayden started as a libero on varsity her freshman year. So, to get to 1,000 kills after being a libero combined with 1,000 digs is a testament to her being well-rounded,” he said.
“Abbi Winter, again, was on varsity as a freshman,” he continued. “That sure helps to get to 1,000 assists. A thousand assists in an offense where we’re running a 6-2—we have two setters—that’s awesome because if you’re running a 5-1 and you’re the only setter on the floor, you’re going to get to that total a lot quicker.
“She’s done that in a 6-2 offense, which I think is even more remarkable,” Johnson said.
Grimes is averaging 5.2 kills per set as one of the team’s outside hitters and 3.2 digs per set, while Winter has about 300 assists on the season.
“My freshman year coming in, I knew I was going to have to work for my spot as a libero,” Grimes said. “Coming into my sophomore year, I knew I was going to have to be a hitter for the team, and I came to practice every day thinking I was going to work to get that 1,000th kill before my senior year ended. All my teammates have helped me push towards that throughout my three years.”
Most of the team has been “playing together for a decent while,” Johnson said. “There are several of our junior class with varsity experience as freshmen. So, this is not necessarily new to them. Being on the floor as a freshman playing varsity is a lot of time and a lot of games to start accruing these stats.”
Coming up with 1,000 digs as a hitter has been a challenge that Grimes has set her mind to. “It’s kind of hard when I’m not in that libero jersey to get 1,000th digs, but throughout the three years when I’m in the back just focusing and having the mentality that nothing is going to hit the floor,” she said.
“It’s a lot of hard work,” echoed Winter. “I’ve been kind of hoping I’d get it this season because I was close. We have really strong outside hitters, so that really helps, but our middle and right sides have been really good, so I think that’s helped me a lot this season, too.”
That balanced attack has served the team well, Johnson said. “We are well-balanced this year,” Johnson said. “Obviously, we have Hayden Grimes, she carries the load a lot, and Abbey McNeil (junior) on the outside.
“Last year, we fed the outsides a lot, this year, we have weapons everywhere. Everybody can score,” Johnson said. “Not a lot of teams have that, and it really keeps the other team’s blockers trying to guess where we’re going to go,” he said.
That was the case last Tuesday as the combined prowess of Grimes and Winter was on full display. As Winter glanced skyward to spot the ball and thrust it to the left side, Grimes circled back, measured her steps to the net, rose and hammered home a kill for the Indians as they took down Wellington 25-13 and 25-13 and completely bewildered Augusta 25-11 and 25-10.
At one point, Andale rattled off 11 straight points against the Crusaders to take a commanding 16-4 set 1 lead. But Wellington rallied with five consecutive points of their own to come within nine of Andale before succumbing. Although the Crusaders limited the Indians’ scoring streaks in set 2, the outcome was still the same.
In the interim game, Wellington scored 25-7 and 28-26 wins over Augusta.
Andale overwhelmed Augusta in set 1, forcing the Orioles to call three timeouts to try to stem the Indians’ onslaught. Augusta didn’t bother with any timeouts in set 2 as they coped with the inevitable, and Andale closed the game on an 8-1 run.
“We’re playing good volleyball,” Johnson said. “We’ve had some good competition at some of our tournaments. We’ve beat some ranked 5A teams, even some good 6A teams.”
Part of the excitement for the team recently, he said, has been new jerseys for the team “that they’re all excited about,” and milestones for Grimes and Winter. “The student section showed up, the community showed up, and it kind of brought that energy and atmosphere to motivate us and get us excited for these matchups,” Johnson said.