St. Charles E. dominates Geneva
There’s no doubt it’s great for the Geneva’s girls volleyball team to be enjoying the year it is. They took a 13-4 record, 2-0 in conference, into Tuesday’s battle for first place in the Upstate Eight Conference River Division at St. Charles East.
Unfortunately for the Vikings, that also means they aren’t going to sneak up on anyone.
“I heard they had a really good defense so I was going to pull out my best and try my hardest,” said Saints senior middle Nichole Lambert. “It was fun.”
Fun for everyone but the Vikings, who got the Saints’ best and then some. Lambert dominated the middle with 6 kills and 7 blocks while Meghan Niski put away everything on the outside with 14 kills — or 7 more than the entire Geneva team combined — in St. Charles East’s one-sided 25-15, 25-11 victory.
“I’m really pleased with where we are,” Saints coach Jennie Kull said. “Geneva has been playing well. We were focused going into this game. We really needed to play well tonight and they kids did.”
St. Charles East (17-3, 4-0) is in the driver’s seat for the conference title with only St. Charles North and Streamwood left in the short 6-game River schedule.
Kull said her team played its best match of the year last Friday in beating Hinsdale Central. They were plenty good again Tuesday as they won their sixth straight and 10th in their last 11.
“It’s knowing when to peak at the right time,” Niski said. “Obviously you don’t want to start off the season really strong. Starting off a little slow and then progressing — I think we are peaking at the right time now.”
Geneva took advantage of a couple hitting errors to take a 6-4 lead early in Game 1. The Saints responded by scoring 15 of the next 17 points to take command, 19-8.
Lambert came alive at the net during the spurt, blocking back-to-back balls to give the Saints the lead for good. Niski stepped up a few points later with a pair of powerful cross-court kills, two of her 7 kills in Game 1.
“Our setters (Erienne Barry and Stephanie Camper) helped me out a lot,” Lambert said. “I thought we just clicked. We talked in practice this would be a good game for middles and it was.”
Geneva led only once in Game 2, 1-0 when the Saints made one of their 8 service errors on the opening point. Maisey Mulvey served the final 3 points of the match. Lambert blocked two more balls before Geneva hit into the net for its 18th hitting error on match point.
The Vikings fell to 13-5, 2-1.
“They made us look bad,” Geneva coach KC Johnsen said. “They came to play. Rough night against a great team. The snowball was rolling and we couldn’t get it stopped.”
Barry led the Saints with 21 assists.
“Erin and Camper did a really nice job of running the middle, running an offense,” Kull said. “We have been working on that. The chemistry has been real good.”
Ashleigh Shain and Kelly Dalheim topped Geneva with 10 and 7 digs, respectively.
The Vikings are idle until next Tuesday when they host Batavia (15-10, 1-2).
“She (Niski) gets a nice swing but we didn’t adjust,” Johnsen said. “And boy she’s too good if you don’t make some adjustments. She’s not going to take away her team’s momentum. I give her a lot of respect. Same thing with the middle (Lambert). She had a real good night.
“We didn’t make adjustments. You have to make somebody beat you 50 different ways, not three ways. They beat us three ways and beat us soundly.”