Everyone contributes to Glenbard South victory
You know it's your night when you can't decide which players to give shout-outs to first, and when your only complaint while summing up your results is that your wins aren't always pretty.
Glenbard South girls volleyball coach Chad Grant was so excited after his Raiders swept IC Catholic Prep 25-23, 25-20 Thursday night, he almost rattled off the entire lineup when talking about all who contributed. The only negative while looking at his team's 13-2 start is that at times the wins may not always be the prettiest.
"The one thing that we have been good at so far is just winning these (matches)," Grant said after the Raiders improved to 4-0 in the Metro Suburban Conference West. "It's not always the prettiest thing, but it doesn't really matter as long as we come out on top at the end."
The visiting Knights, on the other hand, have been dropping their share of tight contests so far this fall. On Thursday in Glen Ellyn, they led 10-5 in the first game and 9-5 in the nightcap, but when push came to shove it was the balanced Raiders who seemed to claim the biggest points at the biggest times.
Many of those big plays came from middle hitter Sydney Bauman and outside hitter McKenzie Watterson, two of the team's most consistent leaders. But against the Knights (5-6, 2-2), Erin Millett came up big on the right side, setter Alex LaPointe oversaw a strong attack, and everyone on the floor seemed to make big plays on both offense and defense.
"Our right side (Millett) played real well tonight. That was her best match of the season," Grant said after his senior recorded 7 kills. "That was probably the best we've looked as far as spreading it out. Tonight it was a lot of kids and it's really exciting."
After a Millett kill broke a 22-22 tie on the opener, the Knights drew even on a missed serve by the Raiders. Millett and Riley Mullins then recorded kills to give the hosts Game 1.
Millett seemed to put together hot stretches at just the right time for Glenbard South, but she had plenty of help as Bauman added 8 kills and 3 blocks, and Watterson had 7 kills and 9 digs.
"It felt amazing. It was awesome to make some game-changing contributions and overall to clinch the victory," Millett said. "I thought that we all meshed well as a team and the pieces of the puzzle all came together tonight. We want to keep the wins coming and we have big goals for the season and we hope to achieve them."
Watterson has no trouble sharing the spotlight with her teammates this season.
"I think we were ready for a big match tonight, and I think that we played to our best ability," she said, noting that a meeting with unbeaten Geneva on Friday will prove another good test. "We shared the wealth a little bit tonight, and we had it going all around. We had a bunch of secret weapons."
Knights coach Nancy D'Amore is hopeful her team can start turning some of these tough losses into wins. Tess Reardon had 8 kills for IC Catholic Prep, but the team felt it let a key conference match slip away.
"I was just telling them my frustration is I felt like it was there," D'Amore said. "It was there to step up and take it and we just didn't respond. We've got to figure out why. I'm not taking anything away from Glenbard South, but I thought we had a lot of opportunity to seize the moment, if you will, and we didn't."