St. Charles North rallies by St. Charles East
St. Charles North was brimming with confidence entering its boys volleyball matchup with St. Charles East in Tuesday's Geneva regional semifinals. The North Stars defeated the Saints in straight sets last month en route to capturing their third consecutive Upstate Eight Conference River championship.
In retrospect, they may have been suffering from overconfidence.
St. Charles East stunned its crosstown rival and a boisterous regional crowd in the opening set. The Saints quickly broke out to a 14-4 lead that forced St. Charles North coach Todd Weimer to burn two early timeouts to no avail, as St. Charles East went on to wrap up a dominant 25-13 first-set victory.
But the humbling loss seemed to refocus the North Stars, who rebounded to pull out a tense 13-25, 25-21, 25-19 win and set up a regional final clash with host Geneva at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
The youthful Saints, who play just two seniors in their rotation, went through an up-and-down 16-19 season, but the underdogs came out energized and loose with nothing to lose against the favored North Stars. St. Charles East quickly built a 9-2 lead capped by a kill by outside hitter Michael Carbonell (10 kills), then stretched its advantage to as much as 21-9 on a left-handed dump kill by setter Jake Lauger (25 assists).
"I thought that was the best we ever played this season," coach Kate McCullagh said of the first set. "You don't want to ever see your season end, of course, but if we were going to end our season, you would like to end your season playing like that."
By the time Carbonell closed out the set with a cross-court kill, the Saints had the North Stars' full attention.
"I don't know if we came out cocky because we beat them earlier in the season, but we weren't communicating in the first game," St. Charles North right-side hitter Danny Hamilton said. "We did a better job in the second and third games, but we need to make sure we don't come out cocky again (on Wednesday against Geneva, which lost to North in three sets April 28). We need to just come out strong with lots of communication and energy."
Hamilton was one of the key reasons that St. Charles North (23-12) turned the tide in the final two sets. The junior pounded a career-high 13 kills at the most opportune time, including six kills in the second set, as the North Stars regained their swagger and jumped ahead 23-13 on Hamilton's fifth kill of the set.
"We just weren't executing well early," Weimer said. "We couldn't execute anything in that first set. Even serve receive gave them easy points. We focused on serve receive in the second set and executing better. Danny had a great match, and Brendan (Donlevy) and Drew (Lanz) did a great job of terminating on the outside."
The Saints still refused to quit, outscoring the North Stars 8-1 to draw within 24-21 on a kill down the line by outside hitter Jimmy Farace (11 kills). But Lanz ended the rally and the set by landing a kill in the right corner of St. Charles East's court to force a third set.
St. Charles North then led most of the deciding set, wearing down the scrappy Saints with a diversified attack run by setter Danny Throop (36 assists) that included four kills from Hamilton on the right side and three kills apiece by left-side hitters Lanz and Donlevy as well as middle hitter Jack Kolodziej.