Timothy Christian eyes a path
No St. Francis. No Montini. No unnavigable road to Bloomington. No excuses.
Timothy Christian, which has never reached the state finals in 26 previous seasons and was turned away 17-25, 25-22, 25-22 by Montini in the Class 3A sectional finals last year, is back in Class 2A this year and appears well positioned to end that drought.
Thursday, the Trojans improved to 21-3 overall and 7-0 in the Metro Suburban East with an easy 25-10, 25-16 victory over visiting Ridgewood. Dani Van Laten led Timothy with 16 assists, 4 aces and 3 kills, Kendra Teune added 7 kills and 2 aces, and Ava Venema had 6 kills and a block.
Van Laten was uncertain about the Trojans' prospects at the beginning of the season following the graduation of outside hitter Kacie Stoll (Trinity Christian College) and libero Hanna Markewycz (Pitt).
"I got a little nervous with our team early," she said. "But then as we were playing and we started to pull out a couple of wins, I saw that our team is actually getting pretty good. We're missing a couple players from last year, but we have some juniors stepping up."
Among the juniors who have elevated their games are Teune and Venema.
"We filled in well, even losing Kacie and Hanna," Timothy coach Scott Piersma said. "Ava and Kendra have turned up their game a ton from last year. They're really playing well. Nobody yet this year has stopped Ava. She's hitting, like, .600. It's crazy."
Juniors like libero Zoe Stanton and outside hitter Olivia Hoekstra also have made an impact.
"Kudos to the back row, too," Piersma said. "We're digging up balls and keeping plays alive, and then when we can use Ava and Kendra even more, that just discourages the other team even more."
If Venema and Teune didn't discourage Ridgewood enough Thursday, Van Laten had back-to-back aces to end Game 1 and added two more aces to fuel a 7-0 run in Game 2. The senior setter also had 3 kills, all in the second set.
"Dani is very smart as a setter," Piersma said. "She can tell when that block is hovering in the middle and she'll send it outside for the 1-on-1. Or she could sense that Ava's out and in so fast that the block won't be there and she'll give it right to her. Even herself trying for kills, she's clever with the ball."
Grace Miller added 3 kills for Timothy Christian. Sophomore Gabby LaRocco led Ridgewood (11-16, 2-8) with 5 kills.
"Timothy Christian is a very good team," Ridgewood coach David Wlodarczyk said. "They're running slides, they're running all kinds of things. Our serve-receive killed us. We were taking hard serves. But we've come a long way from the beginning of the year and it's nice to see."