Indiana Preps | The Net Effect — IHSAA Volleyball Regional Round
South Newton needed five sets.
It needed 28 kills from Jada Cripe.
It needed 53 assists from Lindsay Lowe.
It needed Cora Groover producing alongside Cripe and Khloe Bacewic controlling the net.
And even with all of that, the Rebels still had to get through 15-13 in the fifth.
That is what made Saturday’s win matter.
South Newton defeated Marquette Catholic 25-27, 25-20, 25-22, 24-26, 15-13 to win the Class 1A regional championship and advance to semi-state. The Rebels improved to 25-9 and extended their winning streak to eight matches.
Marquette Catholic entered 29-5 and ranked among the top teams in Class 1A. South Newton sent the Blazers home.
The result puts the Rebels in the four-team Delphi semi-state. The performances explain how they got there.
Cripe Gave South Newton a Finisher
When the match stretched to five sets, South Newton continued to have one of the most productive hitters on the floor.
Cripe finished with 28 kills and added 12 digs. She entered the regional already leading South Newton with 424 kills and 91 aces in the available MaxPreps statistics.
Twenty-eight kills in a regional championship is not simply volume. It is responsibility. South Newton needed points late in sets. It needed someone capable of ending rallies when Marquette Catholic stopped giving away anything easy.
Cripe kept providing them.
The junior outside hitter became the most obvious offensive problem Marquette had to solve. The Blazers never completely solved it.
Lowe Made the Volume Possible
Cripe does not get to 28 without someone consistently putting the ball in position.
That was Lowe.
The senior setter finished with 53 assists, 10 digs and two aces. That total matters because South Newton did not operate through a one-hitter offense. Cripe got her volume. Groover got hers. The middle remained involved. Lowe kept finding enough balance to prevent Marquette from simply loading everything toward one pin.
She entered Saturday with 894 assists in the available MaxPreps ledger. The regional pushed that role into a different kind of pressure. A five-set match asks a setter to make the same decisions deeper into the afternoon, after both teams have adjusted and every rotation has already been seen multiple times.
Lowe still delivered 53 assists. That is not just a passing statistic. It is the number that connects the entire South Newton offense.
Groover Made It a Two-Hitter Problem
Marquette Catholic could not focus only on Cripe.
Cora Groover made sure of that.
The senior middle finished with 20 kills and added a solo block. Twenty-eight and 20. That gave South Newton 48 kills from two hitters alone, and it changed how Marquette had to defend the match. Commit too much attention to Cripe and Groover becomes available. Stay balanced and Cripe continues getting one-on-one opportunities.
That is the type of offensive problem that becomes especially valuable in tournament play. South Newton did not need one player to be perfect. It needed two hitters to keep applying pressure from different parts of the net.
Cripe and Groover did exactly that.
Bacewic Gave the Rebels Resistance at the Net
The regional was not won only by South Newton’s attacking numbers.
Khloe Bacewic finished with five blocks. She entered the match leading the Rebels with 56 total blocks in MaxPreps’ available statistics. Against a 29-win opponent, those touches matter.
A block does not always have to hit the floor to change a possession. It can force a hitter to alter the next swing. It can funnel an attack toward the defense. It can turn a clean offensive look into a free ball.
Bacewic gave South Newton that presence throughout a match where neither team created much separation. In a fifth set decided by two points, five blocks carry more weight.
This Was Never Comfortable
South Newton lost the opening set 27-25.
Then the Rebels won the next two. Marquette responded by taking the fourth 26-24. That sent the regional championship to 15.
There was no runaway stretch. No easy reset. No room for a long scoring drought.
South Newton won the deciding set 15-13.
That is the part worth carrying forward. The Rebels did not advance because everything worked. They advanced after losing the first set. They advanced after missing an opportunity to finish the match in four. They advanced after Marquette forced them into one final race to 15.
Tournament volleyball eventually asks teams how they handle the part where the plan stops being clean.
South Newton now has an answer.
The Opponent Made the Win Matter More
Marquette Catholic was not simply another regional opponent.
The Blazers entered 29-5 and ranked No. 6 in Class 1A in the MaxPreps comparison available before the match. South Newton entered ranked No. 10. Marquette also brought more digs and a comparable offensive résumé into the matchup.
South Newton still found enough. The Rebels had the more productive individual hitter Saturday. They had the setter who kept the offense functioning through five. They had a second 20-kill option. They had the net presence to keep Marquette from operating cleanly all afternoon.
That is what a regional championship required.
Northfield Is Next
South Newton now heads to the Delphi semi-state on October 31.
The Rebels will face Northfield, which enters 19-12, in the noon semifinal. Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian and Rossville meet in the other semifinal, with the winners returning for the 7 p.m. semi-state championship and a trip to Gainbridge Fieldhouse on the line.
South Newton arrives 25-9. Eight straight wins. One win from playing for a semi-state championship. And with a regional performance that showed exactly how many different players can carry part of the load.
Cripe can finish. Lowe can run it. Groover can give the offense another terminal option. Bacewic can change possessions at the net.
Saturday required all of them. That may be the most important part of South Newton’s five-set survival.
The Rebels did not find one hero.
They found enough answers.
Statistics via MaxPreps. Regional and semi-state pairings via IHSAA.org. Indiana Preps covers high school athletics, recruiting,
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