Girls volleyball: Waubonsie Valley handles St. Charles North
Fresh off an emotional victory over Neuqua Valley, Waubonsie Valley's girls volleyball team wasn't at its best early on against St. Charles North Thursday night.
However, things improved nicely from there for the Warriors (15-8), who earned a 25-17, 25-20 nonconference victory over the North Stars (11-8) in St. Charles.
Clinging to a 16-15 advantage in the first set, the Warriors received blocks from junior Gisela Bode and senior Anna Jaskoviak during a 4-0 run before sealing the opener on back-to-back kills by senior outside hitter Briana Webb.
Despite the first set triumph, Warriors coach Kari Galen felt her team needed a spark.
"I told the girls at the end of the first game, 'this game you won but it looks dead energy-wise,' " said Galen. "We picked it up. We came together as a team and changed that mentality going into the second game."
Trailing 3-1 in the second set, Waubonsie Valley turned the momentum its way thanks to a 12-2 run that included a pair of aces from junior libero Michelle Lee, 2 kills from junior Greer Griffin, and a kill and block from freshman setter Melissa Walden (17 assists, 2 kills, block, ace).
"She's a good athlete," Galen said of Walden. "She's at a great starting point right now and has a lot of potential to grow. We're really looking forward to seeing what she's able to do for us in the future.
"Her teammates have been very supportive. Our upperclassmen have done a nice job of coming together and supporting and encouraging her."
Webb and Griffin paced the Warriors with 8 and 7 kills, respectively.
"The difference was we had so much more energy (in the second set)," said Webb. "We started communicating and we started executing. In the beginning, we were down and quiet but at the end we kept getting more and more energy."
Katie Lanz and Abby Graham each had 4 kills for the North Stars, who cut a 21-12 deficit to 24-20 before another powerful kill from Webb closed out the match.
"They're a very good team," North Stars coach Lindsey Hawkins said of the Warriors. "Those two outsides (Griffin and Webb) were good for them tonight and really hard to block."
Mistakes haunted the North Stars in both sets, especially the opener that included 4 service errors, 7 hitting errors, and a pair of center-line violations.
"From the very beginning of the season, I've been saying we're young, we're inexperienced, and we're going to make young mistakes," said Hawkins. "At this point right now, I just try to let them fight through it and try to learn from those mistakes.
"We pride ourselves on serving aggressively and it just wasn't there tonight. That makes it hard to get them out of system."
Meanwhile, Waubonsie prepares for Monday's rematch with unbeaten Geneva in Aurora.
"I'm kind of interested to see how we play against them," said Galen. "When we played them the first time, we took a set off of them and that was without our starting libero (Lee). She's back now so we'll see what we can do against them."