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Benet volleyball suffers first defeat

While some schools may be intimidated stepping onto the volleyball court to take on Benet, Mother McAuley is not one of them.

In the championship match of the Glenbard East Autumnfest tourney on Saturday, the Macs defeated the previously unbeaten Redwings 25-19, 25-20. The Macs (31-3), who knocked off Benet last year in the Class 4A finals, won their second straight Autumnfest crown behind the strong play of tourney MVP Kelsey Clark and outside hitter Ryann DeJarld, who had 15 kills in the finals on her way to all-tourney honors.

“McAuley played really well. When you play in big matches and you get to these championships, you have to expect teams to play well, and we needed to play well to go with them,” said Redwings coach Brad Baker, whose squad advanced to the finals by beating St. Charles East 25-16, 25-18 in Saturday's semifinals.

“Hopefully, we can play them again, but we've got to earn that right to get there. Last year's team didn't have this opportunity. We didn't get to play them earlier in the season. We need to use this to our advantage.”

If all goes according to the seedings, the two powers would meet again at the Class 4A Hinsdale Central supersectional. Redwings outside hitter Dana Griffin, who had 5 kills against the Macs, is hoping her team can close out matches better in the playoffs than it did in Saturday's final.

“They're a very good team,” said Griffin, who shared team-high honors in kills with Veronica Snelling and Tiffany Clark. “We had to go, like, 100 percent on every play. They just had a nice finish. We have to work on a couple things so we can push through at the end of the game. It was nice to be able to see them now, so hopefully if we see them again this experience will help us.”

The 32-1 Redwings trailed 19-14 in the first game before closing to within 19-17 after kills from Griffin and Rachael Fara and an error by the Macs. But Mother McAuley went to Ryann DeJarld for a pair of big kills late and the Redwings also committed a pair of errors as the first game got away.

Game 2 was tied at 18-18 and 19-19, but again the Macs came up big with the game on the line and closed out the game and the match on a block kill by Maggie Scanlon.

“This team is very businesslike,” Mother McAuley coach Jennifer DeJarld. “They approach every game the same. It doesn't matter who's out there. We need to control our side of the court and stay quick and work on the things we're working. They know how to compete and they just have that experience.”

St. Charles East (26-8) beat Glenbard West 25-17, 25-22 to finish third. The Hilltoppers (25-7) had avenged a recent loss to Downers Grove North but closed out the tourney with tough losses to Benet and then the Trojans.

Waubonsie Valley fell to Joliet Catholic in the ninth-place match. The Warriors' Caroline Cordes was named to the all-tourney team, along with, among others, Benet's Fara and Sara Nielsen, Glenbard West's Natalie Schilling, Glenbard East's Sam Bell, Downers North's Grace Larson and Naperville Central's Lianne White.

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