Girls volleyball: Dundee-Crown's roll continues with win over Huntley

There seems to be no challenge that the Dundee-Crown girls volleyball team can't handle. The Chargers continued their ascension to new heights on Thursday with a come-from-behind 21-25, 25-22, 25-18 win at home over a tough Huntley squad in Fox Valley Conference Valley Division action.

D-C has now won 8 in a row and is enjoying its best start ever at 14-2 and 3-0.

"I would prefer to be flying a little under the radar right now," D-C coach Christine Hopkins-Muehl said. "But with success comes bigger expectations and more attention. The girls are putting big things on their shoulders and for the most part this is a veteran group that is handling it pretty well. I think they put a little too much pressure on themselves early on tonight. But they have been playing together for a long time and been in tough situations, so they were able to get themselves settled down."

After dropping Game 1 D-C was on the ropes in Game 2 down 15-11. However, the Chargers came surging back to pull even at 18-18 on an ace from Frankie Cavallaro. Moments later Breanna Novak put D-C up for good 20-19 with another ace that started a 5-point service run extending the lead to 24-20. After a couple Huntley points, Ashley Raby finished off the game for the Chargers with a kill.

Gina Pagano had a big second game with 4 kills and 3 aces, including a pair of kills during the pivotal run that propelled the Chargers into the lead. Pagano finished the match with 7 kills, 7 aces, and 8 digs.

"I think we psyched ourselves out a little at the beginning," Pagano said. "Once we were able to control that nervous energy and relax we started playing better. We just needed to focus on the little things and it made a big difference. The hopes we had at the start of the season are starting to be real. This was another big win. I can't wait to see what we can continue to do."

Game 3 was even at 10-10 before the Chargers took control with an 8-1 run to pull out to an 18-11 lead. They cruised to victory from there. Breanna Novak had a pair of big kills during the surge. She finished with 6 kills, Cavallaro had a team high 7 kills and 15 assists.

"We just kept persevering and were able to fight back for the win," Hopkins-Muehl said. "Our serving stayed on point and eventually we got our hitters more involved and they started putting the ball down."

After a great start the Red Raiders (7-5, 2-2) imploded with 16 unforced errors in the final game, including 6 missed serves.

"Our youth really caught up to us," Huntley coach Karen Naymola said. "We started missing a lot of serves and that killed us. When we were serving aggressively at the beginning we were doing fine, but once we missed a few we lost confidence and started playing timidly. This is a team you just can't back down against."

Alyson Dion led the Red Raiders with 11 kills and also had 13 digs. Brea Jereb had a team-high 17 digs.