Franklin Community doesn’t appear in the Indiana Preps Power 15. That’s exactly what makes this week’s Team of the Week selection worth paying attention to.
The Grizzly Cubs went to a tournament on September 19 and beat two programs that had every reason to expect a different result. First came Bishop Chatard — swept 2-0 with set scores of 25-11 and 25-22. Then came Evansville North, ranked No. 19 in Indiana and riding a five-game winning streak — beaten 2-1 in a match that required Franklin Community to close it out when it mattered.
The combination of those two results in the same day is the definition of a statement weekend for a program operating outside the traditional power tier.
The performance against Chatard was a team effort from start to finish. Maddison Judge led the way with six kills and five aces — a two-phase contribution that forced Chatard to account for her on both sides of the service line. Anna Kate Leugers added seven kills and six digs, a line that reflected a player contributing in both offensive and defensive phases simultaneously. Chatard fell to 6-13 on the road in their most recent away loss entering that match — but Franklin Community didn’t know that going in and didn’t need to.
The Evansville North win is the one that moves the needle statewide. North entered at 13-2 with a five-game winning streak that was building a legitimate résumé for their No. 19 ranking. Franklin Community ended both. The 2-1 result required the Grizzly Cubs to hold on in a third set against a program that had been playing its best volleyball of the season.
They held on.
Franklin Community moved to 8-4 on the season after the two wins — winners of six of their last eight matches, a run that now includes a ranked victory over a program with double-digit wins. That trajectory, not a preseason ranking, is what earned them this recognition.
Indiana Preps names Franklin Community its Volleyball Team of the Week, powered by Identity Kept Services.