MONTICELLO — Tori Fadness remembers when Rossville volleyball wasn't fun.
It lasted half of a season in 2023, Fadness' freshman year.
An administrative decision was made midway through the season to relieve the head coach.
Lexi Ellenwood's chemistry class was interrupted to ask if she'd coach the Hornets that evening. She agreed.
"I didn't really know anything about Rossville at the time," Ellenwood said. "It was my first year there. It's been a blessing. That's for sure."
Ellenwood became Rossville's permanent coach.
She treated players like people first and athletes second, Fadness said.
Volleyball was fun again.
Well, until this week's practices.
Pyramid drills with six stations. Players work their way up the ladder. Mess up at any point and the pyramid restarts at the first step. All the preconceived plan to have the Hornets fully prepared to play in Saturday's Class A Twin Lakes Regional.
"It teaches you to face adversity," said Fadness, now Rossville's senior setter. "We do a lot of serve receive defense. We do a lot of blocking lately. Nonstop blocking. I think it showed in that fifth set. Our defense was on tonight."
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On Saturday, her Hornets team repeated as regional champions with a 23-25, 17-25, 25-18, 26-24, 21-19 comeback over Class A No. 1 Covington.
"It is very hard to reverse sweep the No. 1 team in 1A," Fadness said. "I am proud of each and every one of them. We had so much drive and determination that honestly I've never seen that before in our team."
The Trojans (31-4) came with firepower against that defense, a combined 43 kills from freshmen Meredith Wright and Reagan Stonecipher.
Three times, Rossville was playing for its season. Three times, the Hornets prevailed, eventually rallying to win a fourth set and staving off two match points in a prolonged fifth set with a combination of tenacious defense and timely hitting, capped by Kendall McCullough's regional-clinching kill.
The Hornets (26-7) matched Covington's freshman hitters with a youthful duo of its own — sophomore Blaire Wellman and freshman Mallory Edmonds — and had clutch serving from libero Cassandra Schoon and defensive specialists Bridget Gochenour and Jaylynn Burrell, to pull off the perceived upset.
Only the Hornets didn't feel like it was an upset at all, especially given their status as defending regional champion.
"Rankings doesn't affect how you should play," Edmonds said. "It doesn't affect how the other team plays. At the end of the day, you can either come out or not."
After two sets, backs against the wall, Ellenwood coolly reminded Rossville's players of the standard
The team wasn't playing poorly, but it also wasn't meeting its own performance standard. If it could, maybe Covington didn't have the Hornets pinned down as much as it thought, which proved true.
Rossville will play Fort Wayne Blackhawk (23-12) in next Saturday's Class A semi-state semifinal.
Three years ago, Ellenwood got thrust into a volleyball coaching job she didn't apply for.
And now she's helped build it into one of the top small school programs in Indiana.
"We have really worked to build a solid foundation for anybody that starts in our program in the feeder system and comes up for them to be equipped with the skills to win tough games like this," Ellenwood said.
Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on X and Instagram @samueltking.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Rossville volleyball stuns No 1 Covington, repeats as regional champion