Kaneland upends Yorkville to win confernece crown
The long wait is finally over for the Kaneland volleyball team.
The Knights traveled to Yorkville Thursday night and avenged their only Northern Illinois Big XII East loss of the season, their 26-24, 25-14 victory giving Kaneland a share of the conference championship with the Foxes (29-2, 7-1) - and spoiling their Senior Night in the process.
Kaneland coach Cynthia Violett wasn't sure the last time the Knights won a conference title but knows it hasn't been during her 20 years at the school. Others said the last Kaneland crown came in 1981.
"I told the girls, 'Want will take you far,'" Violett said. "You just have to keep wanting it. The want to end up as co-champions was huge."
Kaneland (22-8-1, 7-1) showed plenty of want during a tense first set. Violett took a timeout down 11-6 and from there the Knights quickly went on a 7-2 run to pull even.
The teams eventually battled through 11 ties and 4 lead changes including ties at 20, 22, 23 and 24.
Yorkville had one game point at 24-23 which Kaneland erased with one of go-to hitter Ellie Dunn's 7 first-set kills.
The Ball-State bound Dunn then stepped to the service line and won the next two points, both on kills by Anna Senese set up by Hannah Nauert.
"Our setters are smart setters," Violett said. "They have great volleyball IQ and know what plays to run and when to run them."
Senese added 5 kills in the set and Riley Hannula 4 as the aggressive Knights put away 18 kills while only hitting four balls out. The Knights also didn't miss a serve in either set while getting 3 aces from Hannula.
"The last time we played them we had an insane amount of missed serves," Dunn said. "This time we settled down and knew that was our weakness last time and really put our focus on that."
For all the drama in the first set, the second set was all Knights. Kaneland took an early 7-5 lead on a 3-point service run by libero Kathy Nguyen.
McKenzie McMullan and Annmarie Franz joined Dunn and Hannula putting up a big block on Yorkville's top hitters. Dunn kept swinging away including a booming spike on another Nauert set for a 21-13 lead.
Dunn's 14th kill got the Knights to match point before a Yorkville violation ended the match and sent the Knights players into a loud and long celebration fitting for a conference title so long in the making.
"The last time we played them the pressure of we need to do this got to us," Dunn said. "But this time no matter what we were either going to get first or second so we were happy with that. We are in a good conference so no matter how we end up is awesome."
Awesome indeed, and with more milestones in front of them starting next week as the No 1 seed at the Class 3A Hampshire regional.
"Everybody on the bench is helping everyone on the court," Violett said. "We're just a whole team. It takes all of us."