Practice pays for South Elgin
Of all the places for South Elgin's girls volleyball team to right the ship, West Aurora was a fitting location.
The Storm had just played a tournament over the weekend there that didn't go so well.
After a rigorous - and apparently quite effective - practice on Monday, South Elgin returned to West Aurora Tuesday for an Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division matchup.
The Storm dominated both sets, using strong serving and solid play from their middles while capitalizing on plenty of West Aurora mistakes for a 25-15, 25-13 victory.
"We communicated a lot better and we meshed better as a team," South Elgin middle Sarah Hallas said. "Yesterday we had a pretty tough practice. We practiced everything we did wrong."
South Elgin coach Joni Plach said her team mainly worked on the defensive side of the court.
"We worked on a lot of defense and passing," Plach said. "We had a tough practice and I felt like it carried on today. I have four strong seniors (Hallas, Katie Innis, Alyssa Miner and Renee Rush) and they are learning how to be leaders this year."
South Elgin (2-5-1, 1-1) led throughout both games except for a brief West Aurora (2-12, 0-2) surge to start Game 2.
Tied four times in Game 1, the Storm took the lead for good at 12-11, ending the game on a 14-4 run. Hallas served the final four points including a couple aces.
Those were 2 of her 4 aces.
"We were able to serve a little tougher," Plach said. "When you get a little confidence you can serve a little tougher and get them out of system."
Mallory Jones opened Game 2 with a couple early kills, Kayla Battle fired a pair of aces, and the Blackhawks built a 7-3 lead.
That disappeared in no time as South Elgin followed with 8-0 and 14-1 runs to go up 15-8. Innis and Hallas were at the service line for the two big streaks, and as the lead began to open up for the Storm, the Blackhawks started making more errors. Hallas ended the match by slamming home an overpass and putting up a big block late in Game 2.
Rush led the Storm with 5 kills, 5 assists and 6 digs. Phoebe Duncan added 3 kills on a much more enjoyable night for Plach than three days prior in the same gym.
"We did not play like that at all," Plach said of the West Aurora tournament. "We had a lot of mistakes this weekend. Today we had a lot of nice play. We worked together as a team. We had lots of blocks. We have a very tall team so we have to capitalize on blocking. We did that tonight. This was a nice win tonight."
The Blackhawks were coming off a first-place Silver Division finish in that same tournament but were not able to carry over the momentum.
"I feel like we started out flat. We never got into a rhythm," West Aurora coach Kari Nicholson said. "We searched to find the rhythm. We had trouble with our serve-receive and when we got our serve-receive down we had trouble putting the ball down."