Joliet Catholic tops Geneva for title
After earning a hard-fought semifinal victory over rival Batavia, Geneva’s girls volleyball team ran into a familiar and formidable opponent in the championship of its own tournament Saturday afternoon.
Perennial power Joliet Catholic emerged with the tourney title after handing the Vikings (6-2) a 25-20, 25-14 defeat.
“We were on a pretty good high and played pretty well against Batavia,” said Vikings coach KC Johnsen. “You never want to read too much into that but it’s still Geneva-Batavia. There was a lot of emotion in that match.”
Led by 5-11 outside hitters Kelly Feigh, Morgan Reardon and 6-foot middle hitter Hailey Pennington, the Angels unleashed a potent offensive while jumping out to a 16-6 lead in the opening game.
“JCA is just a quality team year in and year out,” said Johnsen, whose team finished the day with a 4-1 mark. “We were a little flat and got into a little hole. It’s hard to get out of a hole against a team like that.”
But that’s exactly what the Vikings did, as Morgan Stasell, Hannah Buck and Kelly Dalheim fueled a 12-2 surge that tied the game at 18-all. Dalheim provided 7 consecutive service points, including 3 aces.
“That’s how we expect her to serve,” Johnsen said of his 5-5 defensive specialist. “She’s got a wicked little serve.”
Reardon, who had 4 aces in the first game, added back-to-back kills as the Angels closed with a 7-2 run.
“We tried to fight back,” said Johnsen, “but they’ve got a lot of weapons.”
Melissa Hanika had 3 kills in the second game for the Vikings, who recorded 2-game wins over IMSA, Morris and Fenton in pool play before their highlight match against Batavia (10-4).
“We were very happy with that match,” said Buck, a junior outside hitter who led the Vikings with 20 kills in 5 matches. “I think we played really well as a team and everyone got to contribute at some point today.”
Elle Weinstein and Jess Wicinski added 18 and 15 kills, respectively, for the Vikings, while setters Nicole Schneider and Stephanie Earl had 42 and 40 assists apiece.
“We kind of know our strength is our depth,” said Johnsen. “It’s a little bit of a challenge because you never know who’s hot. We need to figure out who is playing well and move it around.”
With the air conditioning not working properly in the Contest Gym, the teams battled less-than-ideal conditions throughout the day.
“It was a hard day,” said Batavia coach Lori Trippi-Payne. “We played five matches in 6 ½ hours in this heat. It was pretty grueling and our pool was tough.”
Batavia bounced back from an opening-match loss to Joliet Catholic (25-22, 25-16) with a 3-game comeback triumph over DeKalb (19-25, 25-22, 15-11) and swept Burlington Central (25-12, 25-9) in impressive fashion.
“I thought beating DeKalb was huge,” said Trippi-Payne. “They have some kids who were on the team that won the Davis Festival this summer. We played really, really well against Burlington Central, which is a great program. And then we laid an egg against Geneva.
“We netted a lot of balls and our serving was just awful (6 errors vs. Geneva),” Trippi-Payne added. “You can’t beat a good team like that.”
Kristen Koncelik finished the day with 36 kills, including a season-high 12 against Morris, while senior setter Mary Nilles had a season-best 28 assists in the third-place match despite battling a case of stomach flu.