Girls volleyball: Naperville North stuns Geneva
Perhaps other than her braces, Sarah Kushner did not look like a freshman Thursday evening in Plainfield.
The Naperville North outside hitter delivered game-winning kills in the final two sets of the Huskies' three-game thriller against the Geneva girls volleyball team.
Naperville North, the sixth seed of the Class 4A East Aurora sectional, stunned the No. 3 Vikings with a dramatic come-from-behind 17-25, 25-23, 25-23 victory at the Plainfield North regional championship.
The Huskies (27-10) will meet second-seeded St. Charles North, which also needed to rally against Waubonsie Valley, in the second semifinal Tuesday night in Aurora.
Geneva had its season come to a close at 33-4.
"I knew I had to put the ball down," Kushner said of the set-clinching points, part of her team-high 11 kills. "I knew if I could hit my hardest I could get it done."
Geneva appeared to make quick work of the Huskies when Wisconsin recruit Grace Loberg had 6 of her match-high 16 kills as part of the Vikings' 11-1 start to open the match.
But Naperville North would display its recuperative powers by crawling within 3 points late in the first game on a Rachel Shuty ace.
Geneva responded behind Kyley Thompson and Mikayla Lanasa to close out the first set.
But a pattern had emerged that would auger well for the Huskies.
"They did fight back in that first set and show their character," Geneva coach Annie Seitelman said. "It's a game of momentum, and you saw that in the third set with the way it was going back and forth."
Nowhere was the change of fortune for Naperville North more vividly realized than its collective defense.
The impunity with which Loberg, Ally Barrett and Thompson began the match dissipated noticeably as the next two sets unfolded.
Another Naperville North underclassman, Sarah Wastek, had a match-high 3 blocks - all of which had major significance - in the Huskies' consecutive 2-point wins.
"Our coaches told us that we needed to get our hands lower on the net," said Wastek, a sophomore. "What really helped was our libero (Emily Bushman) and the defense really stepped up; they were digging a lot of (the Vikings') great hits."
Naperville North fell behind early in both the second and third sets.
But a combination of Geneva hitting errors and serving prowess by the Huskies, not to mention the energy Kushner exuded, reversed the tide.
"We just knew it could be our last game," Kushner said.
Barrett had one of her 11 kills to bring Geneva to within 24-23 in the second set, only to have Kushner extend the match with a kill off the Vikings' block.
The Huskies repeated the feat to end the Vikings' 33-match-win season.
"They stole some momentum from us in the second game," Loberg said. "I am extremely disappointed with how (the season) ended."