Huntley savors its own tournament championship
Playing St. Francis and Cary-Grove earlier in the week turned out to be beneficial losses for the young Huntley girls volleyball team.
The Red Raiders finished off a perfect weekend with a 25-20, 25-22 win over Marian Central Saturday to capture the championship of the 30th annual Huntley Invitational, the first time they have won their own tournament in coach Karen Naymola's three years at the helm.
"We had a rough week with St. Francis and Cary-Grove so to get this and build our confidence as we get closer to regionals is huge," said Naymola, whose team was 5-0 for the weekend and lost just one set. "We're a young group and one of our struggles and inconsistencies is we get down and we lack leadership. But lately the girls have been doing a good job of keeping control of things."
Lessons learned from the losses to defending Class 3A state champion St. Francis and powerful Cary-Grove went a long way to Saturday's championship, said Raiders' senior setter Kelsey DeWulff, who had 23 assists in the championship match and 120 for the weekend.
"Playing St. Francis was a great experience," she said. "They are a great team and they taught us what we needed to work on and Cary-Grove taught us some things we still need to work on.
"The past two days we had really good communication. We stayed up and we stayed positive. People were looking at me and saying give me the ball, I'm gonna put it down."
After beating Sycamore in three sets in the semifinals, the Red Raiders (16-10) held a 15-10 lead over Marian Central (12-10) in Game 1 of the title match when a Hurricanes serve out of bounds put junior Erin Erb at the service line. Two aces and 2 kills from junior Sydney Holt helped Huntley extend the lead to 22-10 before Marian made a comeback, eventually closing to within 24-20. But a net violation on the Hurricanes trying to defend a spike from sophomore Alyson Dion gave Huntley the set.
The Red Raiders, who are the top seed in their own Class 4A regional at the end of the month, then had to come from behind in the second set. They trailed 20-18 when they got service back on a net serve by the Hurricanes. An Erb kill tied the set and two Marian errors sandwiched around a strong block by freshman Aleah Amelio and Holt made it a 23-20 Huntley lead. Marian did close to within 24-22 but a net serve gave the Red Raiders the first-place hardware.
"We knew Marian was a very scrappy team on defense and we knew we'd have to serve aggressively against them and that helped us on defense," said Naymola, whose team lost to Rockford Boylan in last year's title match."
Erb had 8 kills in the title match and 42 for the tournament, while Dion also had 8 kills in the championship match and 35 kills with 37 digs for the weekend. Senior Haley Arnieri had 13 digs against Marian and 66 for the weekend for the Red Raiders, whose other wins were over Richmond-Burton, South Elgin and Round Lake.
St. Edward came away from the weekend with fifth place, defeating Montini 25-13, 25-20 in the Gold Bracket championship match.
"It was a really nice win for us," said Green Wave coach Jaime Dovichi. "We kind of picked apart their serve receive which was nice, and we ran a nice offense."
Leading the Green Wave (16-8) for the weekend were Cece Rapp (23 kills), Alyssa Saunders (28 digs), Casey Gredzieleski (32 assists, 10 aces), Dominique Washington (26 kills, 21 assists), Megan Barth (15 kills, 18 digs, 8 aces) and Samantha Boydston (10 kills). St. Edward's other wins were over Streamwood, Harlem and Richmond the Wave lost to Sycamore.
South Elgin won the Silver Bracket, beating Jacobs 25-23, 21-25, 25-23 in the seventh-place match. The Storm also defeated Round Lake and Harlem and lost to Huntley and Richmond.
Renee Rush had 24 kills and 40 assists for the weekend, while Alyssa Miner (12 blocks, 14 kills) and Katie Innis (15 kills, 30 digs) also stepped up for the Storm (13-11-1).