Sterling overpowers Kaneland

Posted October 29, 2015 1:00 am

John Lemon

Kaneland surprised a lot of teams this fall with a 20-win season following heavy graduation losses, but the Knights finally met their match Thursday night in the Class 3A Plano championship game.

Led by Northern Illinois-bound Kaylee Martin and equally powerful outside Jailyn Borum, Sterling overpowered Kaneland from the outside for a 25-13, 25-19 victory.

Sterling (30-6) advances to the Sycamore sectional against Rockford Boylan on Tuesday while Kaneland ends its season at 20-14.

"They are a really good team, you can't take anything away from them," Kaneland coach Cyndi Violett said. "They have a lot of power hitters, they have a great libero back there. They are a good team."

Slow starts have plagued Kaneland this season and it happened again Thursday. Borum blasted a winner for the first point of the match and the Knights followed with an attack error as things snowballed and Violett had to call timeout quickly down 11-4.

"All season long we've had a hard time starting the game out," Violett said. "For some reason they don't come out with that killer instinct right away."

The Knights never got close in the opening set. They scored the first 4 points of the second set including kills by Annmarie Franz and Jessica Weber and an ace from Hollie Fedderly.

Sterling caught Kaneland at 7 on Martin's laser down the line, took the lead on another Martin kill on the next point and never looked back. Martin and Borum combined for 24 kills - more than the Kaneland team.

"We know we have a phenomenal front row," Sterling coach Dale Dykeman said. "All season we've been working on our back row. It finally clicked all three phases of the game, the blocking, the passing and the hitting was right there. That was a really complete game for us."

Katelyn Jablonski and Weber both had 6 kills to lead Kaneland.

"Great season," Violett said. "Nobody expected anything from us. They thought after we lost all our seniors last year we wouldn't have anything. I think we surprised a lot of teams this year. And we're still young."

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