Girls volleyball: Geneva ousts defending champ St. Francis
Geneva senior outside hitters Ally Barrett and Grace Loberg present a matchup problem for nearly any volleyball team, and defending state champion St. Francis became the latest to experience it Thursday night in the Class 4A Geneva sectional championship match.
Loberg, headed to Wisconsin, smashed 12 kills while the Connecticut-bound Barrett blasted 9 kills with 10 digs, and Geneva defeated St. Francis 25-19, 25-15 to win just the second sectional title in school history.
"I think we did catch them at their best," St. Francis coach Lisa Ston said. "Ally and Grace on the outside were kind of unstoppable. We went to the middle to see if we could score a few points and it worked a little, but when those two are on it's very hard to beat Geneva. They are incredible outsides."
Geneva (37-1) advances to the Hinsdale South supersectional at 3 p.m. Saturday, one win away from its first state berth. The Vikings face Mother McAuley, one of the few teams with outsides who compare to the Geneva duo.
"It's probably going to be the best match we ever played," Geneva libero Payton Bellano said. "They have two big hitters, it's going to be hard to stop them, but we play great defense. Digging against them is probably going to be like digging against Grace and Ally (at practice). Strong hitters, big hitters."
Barrett got Geneva off to a quick start against the Spartans, putting away sets from Mikayla Lanasa on the first two points. Geneva never trailed in the set, and Lanasa also was able to get her middles involved.
The first of four perfect slide plays to Ally Mullen put Geneva up 9-6, and Ston called her first timeout down 12-7 after Loberg's kill.
"We've been working on that (slide) a lot in practice and just working on our timing and tempo," Mullen said. "It definitely worked well tonight.
"We've put in a lot of hard work together and it just feels great to continue on. We were excited to play the state champs from last year and end their run."
St. Francis didn't have an attack error until the 25th point, but then had 3 in 4 points to trail 19-8. The Spartans did close the first set on an 11-6 run, then opened the second set up 6-3 for their best stretch of the night.
Molly Lambillotte's ace tied the second set at 6. Geneva built an 18-11 lead on back-to-back big swings from Loberg straight down the line.
On match point, Lanasa again was able to find Mullen in the middle.
"We played a great game of volleyball," Bellano said. "We watched film on them and we knew what they did. I think we really stepped it up this match. Last year we ended really early (regional finals) and we were upset about that and we made it a point to get further than we did last year."
The Vikings played a clean match with only 2 service errors and 6 attack errors while putting away 31 kills.
"I thought we came out a lot stronger than we did on Tuesday," Geneva coach Annie Seitelman said. "We were in system a lot more. I thought we did an overall nice job. A big point of emphasis for us is trying to side out on that first or second ball to keep them from building the momentum."
Lanasa finished with 29 assists, Mullen added 5 kills, and Lambillotte and Bellano finished with 10 and 8 digs, respectively.
"We're not satisfied yet," Seitelman said. "I told the girls enjoy this tonight, tomorrow we go to work again."
Laney Malloy led St. Francis with 9 kills. The Spartans finished 30-9, their 31st straight 30-win season.
"I think my girls had a fabulous season," Ston said. "We overachieved. We overcame adversity. It took us awhile to figure it out but once they did they got on a roll and did amazing. The expectation of going to state every year is a little bit much to handle for any team. I couldn't be more proud."