St. Charles East beats Batavia, stays undefeated
St. Charles East's girls volleyball team is too good to give a second chance, which Batavia found out the hard way Wednesday night in St. Charles.
The Bulldogs led throughout the first set, building a 20-16 advantage. But once the Saints stormed back with a 9-2 run to win the set, they rode the momentum to quickly put Batavia away, 25-22, 25-14.
"We had the lead, we had it under control, we should have closed it out," Batavia coach Lori Trippi-Payne said. "We can't let their offense back in the game."
St. Charles East (9-0, 1-0 in the Upstate Eight Conference River Division) entered on a high having defeated St. Francis on Saturday to win the Peggy Scholten Volleyball Classic.
It's also Homecoming week for the Saints, and that combination didn't work well according to coach Jennie Kull.
"Homecoming week is definitely a distraction," Saints junior Kyla Augustine said. "We told ourselves before the game we can't get overconfident from winning this weekend. They blocked us from the start which was good for us to have to work around it. We made adjustments."
Aasha Dave had 3 of those blocks for Batavia (5-4, 1-1) while freshman setter Julia Kim (18 assists, 5 digs) spread the offense around to Alissa Danosky (8 kills), Maddy Astling (4 kills) and others.
Astling had a block on the first point of the night to get Batavia off to a good start and later split a Saints block with a spike through two players for a 12-10 lead.
Augustine and Klaudia Sowizral spearheaded the Saints' comeback. Sowizral's kill on a set from Morgan Kull tied the score at 21, then the Saints took the lead for good when Batavia was called for a net violation.
Trailing 24-21 Astling hit down the line to momentarily keep Batavia alive before Saints libero Taylor Chairo took a swing from the back row that found the floor for set point.
The Saints also tooled 6 shots off the Batavia block in the opening set.
"We work on seeing around the block in practice," Augustine said. "Coach Kull designs the best, most helpful drills we do in practice. We are definitely able to go out there and know how to get around blocks and how to put balls away."
Sowizral opened the second set with a block as the Saints raced to an 8-2 lead on a pair of Augustine kills, another Sowizral block and an ace from Chairo.
A kill by Micaela Hix helped Batavia end the Saints' run before the Bulldogs shot themselves in the foot missing 4 straight serves.
After back-to-back blocks from Ilona Willsey and Schumacher, Avery Macklin ended the match with a kill.
"We had that opportunity in the first game and after we lost that opportunity we really did not play well in the second game," Trippi-Payne said. "We missed too many serves, the balls were all over the place, inconsistent. St. Charles East's offense really showed they were the better offensive team in the second set. In the second set we didn't play well offensively."
Augustine paced the Saints with 7 kills, 4 digs, and Sowizral added 4 kills, 3 blocks. Kull (12 assists, 5 digs), Kyra Slavik (6 assists), Chairo (7 digs), Ally Watson (3 kills) and Schumacher (3 kills) all contributed.
"Batavia came out strong and did a nice job," Jennie Kull said. "We didn't execute. We did a little better in the second game. The kids were trying, it just seemed mentally they weren't where they needed to be but they got the job done."