Geneva sweeps St. Charles N.

No matter how hard or how often St. Charles North hit the ball at Geneva on Tuesday night, the Vikings found a way to keep it alive.

That got to be pretty frustrating for the North Stars who dropped a 25-16, 25-18 decision in Upstate Eight Conference River Division play.

Geneva senior libero Ashleigh Shain led the Vikings with 13 digs and Kelly Dalheim added 8.

“It’s an amazing feeling to touch every single ball even when they are slamming it back down five points in a row,” Shain said. “Just to keep it going. I have been on the opposite side of the spectrum and have had that happen to me and it’s really frustrating. They hit some good balls but we were just in our rhythm tonight.”

Geneva (13-4, 2-0) has been in its rhythm most of the season, coming off a third-place finish Saturday at the Glenbard West Tournament.

Coach KC Johnsen has a deep team to thank for much of that success. He said he wasn’t even able to get in a couple of the players who played so well over the weekend on Tuesday because his starters were clicking in both games and had St. Charles North (11-8, 2-1) on its heels.

“I’m kind of pumped because that’s a great win for us,” Johnsen said. “They are a great team and in the conference you only get six games. When there are only six they are all big. You better show up six nights.”

The Vikings never trailed in Game 1. They took a 10-6 lead after a pair of sprawling digs kept the point going long enough for the North Stars to finally hit long. When Tess Forneris slammed an overpass back for a kill to make it 11-6 Geneva, the North Stars called their first timeout.

“We try to get every ball we can to give our front row a chance to swing,” Shain said. “Tonight we were definitely in a rhythm. We were going crazy tonight. It felt so good to play tonight.”

The North Stars finished Game 1 with 5 hitting errors, 3 net violations and a couple service errors. Geneva closed out the game on a North Stars lift.

“Our offense was not on tonight at all,” North Stars coach Lindsey Hawkins said. “We have played some really quality volleyball. We didn’t play that tonight.”

The North Stars held a few brief 1-point leads in Game 2, the final one at 6-5.

Geneva broke the last tie at 15-15 on another North Stars hitting error and continued to build its lead over the final 10 points. Jess Wicinski and Forneris put up a big block on match point.

“We were pretty sharp,” Johnsen said. “I think North is an awful good team. I think we caught them when they weren’t as sharp as I’ve seen them. But I thought we were pretty good.”

Stephanie Earl (14 assists) and Nicole Schneider (10 assists) took turns feeding Geneva’s balanced attack led by Melissa Hanika (7 kills), Elle Weinstein (6 kills) and Hannah Buck (5 kills) while Shain and Dalheim anchored Geneva’s never-say-die backrow.

“Ashleigh and Kelly, they get volleyballs,” Johnsen said. “They are on a mission back there to defend our side of the court.

“When we had to dig a few balls we dug them. We needed a few big thumping kills to match them and we got them. If we can do that with people we are in pretty good shape because we are going to win a lot of the defensive things. Serve-receiving we like our chances too.”

Johnsen explained a little of what the Vikings focus on in practice that makes their defense so scrappy in games.

“Our practices are a little different than most people’s,” Johnsen said. “Just defense and balls coming at a fast pace. We try to make the pace of our practice faster than the games. If I have to throw three quick balls in, something so it’s faster, so the game it slows the pace down. You hear NFL guys talk about that. That’s kind of how we feel with our volleyball girls.”

Hawkins, who used to play club volleyball with Geneva assistant coach Jaime Spolum for Johnsen, was equally impressed with Geneva making just 4 hitting errors.

“They are always a really good defensive team,” Hawkins said. “What made the difference is they just don’t mess up. They keep the ball in play.”