Girls volleyball: Batavia outlasts Larkin

Batavia's size and experience finally won out.

The Bulldogs survived a Larkin rally in the second game for a 25-19, 25-21 victory in the Upstate Eight River girls volleyball opener for both teams Thursday night in Elgin.

Maddy Astling slammed down 7 kills and Alissa Danosky added 6 for the Bulldogs (5-3 overall).

The Bulldogs had to make some lineup adjustments and sometimes looked out of sync early, but rallied behind Astling and Danosky.

"When all is said and done, you could see a little bit more of the experience we have out there," said Batavia coach Lori Trippi-Payne. "We picked up some big balls on defense that I think they thought were going to go down. It made a big difference in the match."

The Royals went on a 6-1 run in the middle of Game 2 to take a 13-9 lead, but they couldn't sustain the momentum. The Bulldogs answered with a 6-1 run of their own. Katelynn Fegan served the last 5 points, including an ace. Larkin tied the game twice more but couldn't regain the lead. Batavia finally finished it off on a kill by Roxy Vermaas.

"We served better in the second game and adjusted the blocking better," said Larkin coach Henry Graack. "We still had a few too many errors, I thought. We just need to make a few less hitting errors and hit our locations on serves a little bit better, but I liked what I saw for the most part in the second game."

Samantha Wahl led Larkin (1-3) with 9 kills and also had 6 digs. April McGhee had 8 digs Ella Riddle-Roland also had 6. Setter Natalie Kofie had 17 assists.

Julia Kim also had 17 assists for Batavia while adding a pair of service aces. Fegan came up with 13 digs.

Batavia jumped ahead in Game 1 with a 6-0 run. The last 5 points came with Fegan at the line. Astling had 3 kills in the Bulldogs' first 5 points. The Royals made a brief late run, scoring 4 straight to get within 19-15, but a hitting error ended the rally and the Bulldogs slowly pulled away.