Girls volleyball: Glenbard South turns momentum against Montini

Glenbard South advanced to the Class 3A girls volleyball sectional semifinals with a come-from-behind victory in Game 3 against Montini on Thursday night in Glen Ellyn.

The Raiders won the Glenbard South regional championship 25-17, 16-25, 26-24.

Montini had all the momentum from the middle of the second game through the middle of the third. The Broncos led 15-7 in Game 3 before the Raiders started chipping away at that lead.

"The whole season we've been very streaky," Raiders senior Bella Bauman said, "so in practice we've been working on just staying with it and fighting for every point. I think our defense really brought us up in that game. We really just pulled it together and played as a team."

"Their defense was absolutely phenomenal," Glenbard South coach Chad Grant said of the Broncos, "and it was hard for us to find the floor at times. They just kept throwing it back to us. We stuck with it and fortunately we were able to win a lot of those long rallies."

Down 22-18, the Raiders (22-15) finished on an 8-2 run.

"Unfortunately, that's the hard spot of having a bunch of freshmen and sophomores on the court," Broncos coach Steve Dowjotas said. "That pressure kind of got to them, started making some unforced errors and they got the momentum back."

Glenbard South finally pulled even with the Broncos at 24-24 in the third game when sophomore Maggie Bair finished one of those long rallies with a kill. Bair and senior setter Clare Werner combined for a block kill on match point.

"We switched our defense up just to give them a different look, and I think that threw them off guard a little bit just when the girl was hitting line," Bauman said. "It really helped us push points."

"We made all the right decisions at the end there," Grant added. "The girls just played incredibly smart. We talked about being tough today, and we were tough when we needed to be at the end."

Senior Allie Sims led the Raiders with 28 digs. Beth Kohl had 8 kills, Bauman added 7 kills and 12 digs, Bair had 10 kills, and freshman Kathleen Millett finished with 5 kills and 14 digs. Werner had 31 assists.

Senior Bethany Loftus and sophomore Caitlyn Meeks each had 8 kills for the Broncos. Freshman Kylie Boyer added 25 assists.

The Raiders will play Trinity at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Montini sectional semifinals.

Follow Orrin on Twitter @Orrin_Schwarz