St. Charles North sweeps Batavia
Batavia hosted St. Charles North on Tuesday for its annual Pack the Place night, which might be the volleyball equivalent of scheduling Ohio State for Homecoming with the way the North Stars have been playing this season.
St. Charles North shook off a slow start by outscoring Batavia 10-2 to close the first set and then dominated the second for a 25-18, 25-14 victory that keeps the North Stars perfect in the Upstate Eight Conference River Division.
"We came out slow tonight," said St. Charles North setter Jaclyn Taylor, one of four seniors in the starting lineup who have been on the varsity since they were freshmen. "That's something we want to work on. Batavia is a great team and played us hard in the first set. We want to focus on coming out from point one against every team."
After scouting St. Charles North (11-1, 4-0) in a win over Geneva last week, Batavia coach Lori Trippi-Payne said the North Stars are "a college team."
Her Bulldogs (6-10, 1-2) got a first-hand look at that Tuesday, with Taylor (Creighton) taking turns setting Daley Krage (Northwestern) and Claire Anderson (DePaul) with another four-year standout Sam Lappin making plays in the back row and serving tough.
"Those four seniors have been with me since they were freshmen so they probably are the best senior class I've had," North Stars coach Lindsey Hawkins said.
"The younger girls, the sophomore class, the freshman (Gianna Crecenzo), she's great, we're really excited about what the program has in the future. But I'm relishing the time I have with these seniors and their last run at things because they have been my babies and it's going to be hard to let them go."
Trailing 15-11 in the first set, the Bulldogs answered with their best stretch of the night, scoring six straight that included a two kills from Maddy Astling to take a 16-15 lead.
Krage's tip tied the score. Leading 19-18, the North Stars earned a sideout on an Anderson kill through two blockers.
Taylor then stepped to the service line and closed out the match. She served an ace, Anderson and Jordan Silvers combined for a block, Anderson slammed another kill, and Batavia made a couple mistakes.
The North Stars rode that strong finish into a quick 11-3 lead in the second set. While Anderson kept putting away shots, the North Stars also scored numerous points on Batavia hitting errors.
"Set two was a little surprising to me because we've been playing better than this," Trippi-Payne said.
"We played well in that first game. But you have to be able to do some things consistently. We start with some passing errors, we clean that up and we have setting errors, then we clean that up and go to set two and we have a ton of attacking errors."
A Silvers block gave the North Stars their biggest lead of the night at 24-11. The Bulldogs fought off 3 match points on a tip kill by Micaela Hix, Sydney Cavanaugh's tool and Katelynn Fegan's ace before Taylor set Crescenzo for the final point.
"We got off to a very slow start and were able to work our way back," Hawkins said. "We showed up a little better in the second set. Not exactly where we were last week (against Geneva). We want to be playing at that level and make sure we are doing better and not taking steps back."
Anderson led both teams with 12 kills. Krage had 6 kills, Taylor dished out 12 assists and Lappin tallied 6 digs.
Astling topped Batavia with 7 kills, Cavanaugh had 4 kills and Jenna Garrett finished with 5 digs, 9 assists.