Indiana Preps | The Net Effect — Indiana Volleyball
Southport has already made this season different.
The Cardinals swept Shelbyville 25-12, 25-17, 25-19 on Tuesday, improving to 22-3 and setting a new program record for wins in a season.
Twenty-two. That number now belongs to this team.
Southport has spent most of the fall outside the loudest part of the statewide conversation, but that does not make the season any less significant. The Cardinals have stacked wins, built consistency and reached a milestone the program had never touched before. And they did it before the postseason started.
That matters.
Too often, teams like Southport only get statewide attention if they make a deep tournament run. This group has already earned a place in the conversation.
The Shelbyville result was another example of why. Southport controlled the match from the start, winning the first set 25-12 and never giving Shelbyville enough room to flip the momentum. The Cardinals stayed steady in the second and closed the sweep in three.
It was not dramatic. It did not need to be.
The result pushed Southport to 22 wins and moved this team into a place no other Southport volleyball team has reached. The record is set. The season is not over.
That is what makes this more than a local milestone story. Twenty-two wins is not one hot week. It is sustained production over two months. The tournament will ask a different question — can that consistency travel? That is where the Cardinals now have a chance to turn a record-setting regular season into something even bigger.
Southport has already rewritten one line in the program history book. October gives them a chance to add another.
Also worth tracking: New Palestine moved to 26-3 with a four-set win over Noblesville. Kennedy Armstrong finished with 30 assists and 13 digs, while Cara Steele and Elena Cook had 13 kills apiece. Armstrong also announced her commitment to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College — another Indiana program building individual résumés alongside team results heading into the postseason.