Very good is good enough for Benet
The goal for top-seeded Benet at Tuesday night's girls volleyball regional in Naperville was to stay alive, and the Redwings accomplished the deed.
It may not have been Benet at its absolute best, but the 35-1 Redwings were sharp in knocking off No. 16 Batavia 25-18, 25-13 to advance to Thursday's regional final against St. Charles North, which outlasted the host Wildcats in three games in the second match of the night at Neuqua Valley.
"The goal is to move on," Benet coach Brad Baker said. "We have certain things that we've been working on and we want to see those things that will help us continue to go on and we saw those things tonight. Thursday's not going to be easy. It's not going to be easy from here on out, but tonight's a start. It's a start of what we hope is a long run."
The Redwings jumped out to leads of 14-5 and 20-10 in the opener, but Batavia (13-24) battled behind the big defense of libero Maddie Jaudon, one of the few seniors on the Bulldogs' young squad. Jaudon had 7 digs in the match - including her 400th of the season - and junior Marielle Eustace added 4 digs.
But after the Bulldogs closed to within 24-18 with four straight points thanks in part to a pair of aces by Laudon, the Redwings closed the first game when Sara Nielsen set up Veronica Snelling for one of her 8 kills.
The Redwings then used a balanced attack and a smooth-running offense led by Nielsen to take the second game in easier fashion. Nielsen had 25 assists on the night and the beneficiaries were many, including Dana Griffin, who shared match-high honors with Snelling with 8 kills, and middle hitter Rachael Fara, who had 7 kills and 2.5 blocks for Benet.
"I think we're improving. There are a lot of things that we show growth on, but even with that there were some mistakes that we want to clean up as we move forward throughout these playoffs," said Fara, a 6-foot-3 senior who will play at Northwestern next year.
Fara knows the Redwings' multifaceted attack can be hard to stop at times.
"That's part of what's great about the depth on our team is that we can set anybody," Fara said. "It's not just one huge hitter that we just set every single ball. We are able to spread out our offense, and our setter Sara does a very good job of that."
While the Bulldogs couldn't pull off the upset, they did play well and senior co-captain Anna Clausen went out in fashion after recording a team-high 7 kills. Maddy Astling had 4 kills and sophomore middle Aasha Davis had 2 big blocks in the second game.
"I think we did everything we could have asked for and I think we gave them a really competitive match," said Jaudon, who plays club volleyball with a number of the Redwings. "No matter what happened we wanted to go out and give it our all and that was all we could have asked from our teammates."