St. Francis sweeps Rosary for 30th win

It takes a lot to impress Peg Kopec, and her St. Francis volleyball program did just that Wednesday night in Aurora.

With a 25-15, 25-15 win over Rosary, the Spartans won their 30th game.

And that's not the impressive part, at least not the most impressive part.

This is the 28th straight year St. Francis has won at least 30 games.

"I'm pretty proud of that stat," Kopec said. "The consistency of quality is pretty exciting."

Sophomore Kamryn Malloy is new to the streak and glad to keep it going.

"We always have a chip on our back," Malloy said. "We have a ton of pressure but we all come from clubs where we can handle the pressure and we take it and use it to our advantage."

Rosary (19-17) took St. Francis (30-4) to 3 sets in a loss earlier this season. The Spartans controlled the rematch, trailing just briefly early in the second set.

"We didn't put as much pressure on them from the beginning as we did last time," Rosary coach Rachel Hartmann said. "It took us longer to find our groove today. (Joanna) Wedge, my right side, we didn't set her maybe one time in the first game. Once we started using her it frees up other hitters. If we could have started like that I think it would have been a different match. Not necessarily a win but a better match."

Molly Haggerty put away 6 kills for St. Francis but had plenty of help from Mary Boken with a match-high 8, and Sarah Muisenga and Malloy each with 4.

"I thought we played well tonight other than missing serves," Kopec said. "We did a lot of other stuff very, very well. I think we are powerful. I think we can attack you from a lot of different places. I like it when Molly Haggerty isn't carrying us on her back and she shouldn't have to."

Haggerty did tally 4 kills in the first set, taking a set from Daniele Messa and blasting a winner for a 19-11 lead. Boken hit an extremely tight angle on a cross-court kill to make it 23-14, and she followed moments later tooling a ball off Rosary's block on set point.

Rosary played much better early in the second set, taking its biggest lead of the night at 9-6 on a block by Michaela Ping.

Malloy fired an ace to pull the Spartans even at 10-10. The Royals took their turn missing serves in the second set - four total - including three out of four during a stretch the Spartans pulled ahead to stay.

St. Francis ended the match on a 12-2 run, and once again Boken was in the middle of the action with three straight kills to extend the lead from 20-15 to 23-15.

Erin Burke led Rosary with 6 kills and Wedge had 4.

"I think the girls hung with them," Hartmann said. "They blocked them really well. Anything that was a big swing we got some kind of touch on. I think they did a good job lining up with them."