Neuqua Valley rallies by St. Charles North
And to think there's still one more round to go.
Neuqua Valley and St. Charles North met for the second time Tuesday in St. Charles, this time in a matchup between the Upstate Eight Conference Valley champion Wildcats and the North Stars, who shared the River side with St. Charles East and Geneva and earned the tiebreaker with the fewest sets lost.
The Wildcats reversed an earlier 3-set loss to the North Stars with a 3-set win of their own. showing plenty of fight after a rough opening set and then holding off 3 match points for an 11-25, 25-22, 26-24 victory in the UEC first place crossover game.
The third meeting between St. Charles North (25-9) and Neuqua Valley (25-10) will come next Tuesday in a dynamite Class 4A Neuqua Valley regional semifinal matchup that most years would be a regional championship if not a sectional game.
"They are opponents that really push us and we love that," Neuqua Valley senior Abby Skryd said. "We love a good challenge and I think that just makes us play better. Overall I think we are pretty closely matched."
They weren't in the first set. They North Stars picked up where they left off last week when they beat St. Charles East and went 5-0 to win the championship at the Minooka Invitational.
Jaclyn Taylor served 10 straight points to open a 12-1 lead. Claire Anderson had 6 kills in the set to power the North Stars attack while the Wildcats uncharacteristically made several mistakes.
Megan Russell capped the set by diving to dig a spike with her shot landing untouched on the Wildcats' side for a winner.
"We made eight attack errors in that set. That's not typical for us," Wildcats coach Kelly Simon said. "We were playing a little tight."
The second set featured big runs by both teams. The Wildcats' 11-2 surge erased an early deficit for a 13-7 lead before the North Stars went on an 11-3 run to go up 18-16.
Taryn Dal Degan pushed a shot into the back corner that tied the set a final time at 21. Kaelan Haag - who finished with 8 kills, 2 blocks, 18 assists and 7 digs - put away a pair of kills on two of the final four points for the 25-22 win.
"They served in and they served aggressively and our passing was not as good as it was the first set," North Stars coach Lindsey Hawkins said. "You have to be in those tough situations. We stopped using our middles as much, and we allowed them to go on more of the 3- and 4-point runs. It's something we've talked about all season."
The third set proved even more frustrating for the North Stars. They took their biggest lead at 16-10 before the Wildcats battled back to a 19-18 lead.
Tied at 21, the North Stars scored three straight on a Hailey Grove kill, Wildcat violation and Daley Krage and Grove block.
The Wildcats responded with a 5-0 run to end the match, fighting off three match points on a service error, Haag kill and North Star violation. After Skryd's 8th kill made it 25-24, Haag ended the match by tooling a shot off the North Star block.
"They are very competitive. The more competitive the game the better. They have pushed through matches that have been tight all year long," said Simon, whose team added to their school-record win total.
"I've been coaching for 20 years and a lot of times you get to this point in the season and they kind of check out. These girls seem like they are just getting started because they know they are getting better every day. They want to keep playing and keep winning."
Anderson led the North Stars with 12 kills. Krage added 6 kills, and Emily Carroll and Grove both had 5 kills and 3 blocks. Taylor finished with 16 digs and 12 assists while Dal Degan added 14 assists.
"It comes down to making mental errors and we just made more than they did," Hawkins said. "We missed key serves (5 in the third set) obviously and that kind of changes the momentum. We started pulling back a little bit. I felt we were making more roll shots than big swings. You can't go down like that."