Sydney Golden's stats line for the championship match of the Ozark Grand Slam Tournament on Saturday reflects her progress as an overall player this season.
With Golden in the middle of seemingly everything for Nixa, the Lady Eagles repeated as Grand Slam champs by rallying for a 22-25, 25-16, 25-15 triumph over St. Francis Borgia in the final.
"Coming back and going back-to-back is awesome," Golden said.
Golden long ago made a name for herself as an all-state setter and is now showing off more of her game. In the title tilt, she collected 27 assists, 10 digs, three aces, two blocks and two kills.
She also had three aces in Nixa's semifinal sweep of Kickapoo.
"I want to be better at not just setting, but defense, blocking and everything so I can improve my overall game," said Golden, whose season totals as a junior include 737 assists, 212 digs, 31 aces and 66 kills.
In regard to defense, the consensus in the Lady Eagles' camp as far back as the pre-season was that Golden would have no choice but to improve. Coach Annie Zimmerman knew opponents with any kind of scouting report on Nixa would try to have their hitters aim toward Golden.
The opposition, of course, does so in an effort to either post a kill at Golden's expense or keep her from setting up the likes of Jaycee Fixsen at the net.
"We talked about that earlier in the season, that teams were probably going to do that to her," Zimmerman said. "We knew a lot of teams were going to try to take advantage of Sydney defensively. I definitely think that's part of their game plan when they play us. They're going to make her play that first ball. But she's really worked to make herself a better defensive player. She knew she had to get better at her defense. She's able to keep the ball alive and under control. I'm proud of her."
"I've gotten better in that aspect," Golden said. "We focused on defense at the beginning of the season a lot. Coming in and working on that has helped us a lot."
Both Zimmerman and Golden have been pleased with the Lady Eagles' ability to still be in an offensive mode, even when Golden isn't setting.
"I think (opponents) look to go to me to get me out of the equation," Golden said. "I think they probably force the ball to me. But I think we have a lot of good out-of-system balls. It's not really a problem for our hitters because we have really good passers."
"As a team, we're confident that when our setter does hit the first ball and it forces us to be out of our system, our hitters are still doing a good job putting balls away or at least making good contact to make the defense make a great play to pick it up," Zimmerman said.
Fixsen led Nixa at the net with 10 kills against Borgia, while Allie Billmyer added nine and Norah Clark had six.
Golden's 31 aces lead the Lady Eagles. She had 20 as a sophomore and 19 as a freshman.
"Her serving has been super aggressive," Zimmerman said. "She's become a very well-rounded player. She's very methodical about the way she plays the game and that's obviously worked out very well for us."
Golden's assists are a bit off her record-setting pace from a year ago. She had 1,059 assists, or an average of 11.3 per set, last season and has 737, or a norm of 10.0, this season. Earlier this year, she passed Rielly Dobbs as the program's career leader in assists with 2,413. Dobbs' previous mark was 1945.
Golden has been thrilled to be recognized for her all-around efforts.
"It's awesome," she said.
Nixa (24-3 overall and 6-1 in the COC) will try to earn a share of the COC championship this week by beating Carl Junction and Carthage. Nixa, Carl Junction and Willard all have one league loss.
Looking ahead to Class 5 District 11 at Nixa, the Lady Eagles are the No. 1 seed and have beaten No. 2 seed Kickapoo four times this season and No. 3 seed Ozark twice.
Nixa whipped Kickapoo 25-22, 25-8 Saturday.
"Before the game, I talked to (Kickapoo coach Marci Adams) and said, 'Is this the fourth time we've played each other this year?' Luckily, so far we've been able to come out on top every single time," Zimmerman said. "Overall, I feel pretty good about where we're at. But we know at Districts everything that has happened up to that point doesn't really matter. It's going to be a battle no matter what."
