Fort Wayne Carroll just snatched their third straight IHSAA Class 4A volleyball state championship, taking down a seriously tough Center Grove squad, 3-1, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The scores, man, they tell a story: 25-16, 25-18, 22-25, 25-17. We knew it’d be a fight, and these girls absolutely delivered on Saturday night.
Stegall’s Clutch Performance Proves She’s Built Different
Seriously, Sarah Stegall is just built different. Our senior outside hitter wasn’t just good, she was clutch when it mattered most. She finished the match with a crazy 18 kills on .268 hitting, a match-high, but that doesn’t even tell the half of it. In the decisive fourth set, she single-handedly went on a 6-1 run to seal the championship. Talk about stepping up! Stegall just beamed after, saying, “You think you kind of get used to it, but I’m still so excited. What a way to finish out.” This woman is likely a Miss Volleyball finalist, and get this: she finished her high school career with 988 kills even after missing almost her entire sophomore season to injury. After flourishing behind 2025 Indiana Miss Volleyball Bailey Sinish last season, Stegall took the reins this year, piling up 481 terminations with a hitting percentage around .360. Sinish herself summed it up perfectly: “Sarah’s been our go-to all year and she stepped up in big moments. … In the big moment, we were gonna give her the ball and she was ready to take care of it.” You can’t ask for more than that.
It Was a Team Effort, From Start to Finish
While Stegall put the ribbon on it, getting to that point was a massive group effort. Junior Katelyn Peters, our heir apparent at the No. 1 attacker spot, was an absolute beast with a double-double: 17 kills and 13 digs. She came up huge in that fourth set too, getting a kill to tie it at 11 and another to push us to 18-14 during that final run. Then there’s Paityn Lauck, our junior middle blocker, who capped off her comeback from missing most of the regular season with her best game of the season, dropping 11 kills on .409 hitting, plus a block, an ace, and a dig. And what about Elli Oskey? Our senior setter was orchestrating everything with 45 assists, and even chipped in with seven kills on .333 hitting, pushing her season total to an incredible 1,025 assists, way up from 330 last year. And let’s not forget our defense. Libero Cala Haffner, a 2028 Texas commit, was a vacuum cleaner out there with 23 digs and four aces. The whole team’s defensive effort was unreal, racking up 64 kills and holding Center Grove to just .119 hitting. Bailey Sinish said it best: “This is just a special group of girls who love the game, love to have fun out there and who love each other. … They are ready for that big moment.”
What a moment for our Chargers! Center Grove made us earn it, playing tougher than anyone over the last couple of seasons, but our girls proved once again why they’re a dynasty. They believed, they worked, and they brought home another championship. Now that’s how you finish out a season!
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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