Girls volleyball: Defending champs too much for Rosary

The sports axiom that defense wins championships applies to volleyball.

Effectively shutting down Rosary's offense, the Marian Central girls volleyball team won its own Class 3A supersectional Saturday afternoon, 25-16, 25-20.

The Hurricanes, last year's Class 3A state champions, return to next weekend's state tournament at Redbird Arena in Normal with hopes of bringing back-to-back state championships to Woodstock.

Coming into the match, Rosary (27-13) was not intimated by Marian (39-1).

"Luckily, we played a lot of tough competition this year, as have they, so I think that helped prepare us for a long, tough match," said Rosary coach Rachel Fox. "I think where we got outplayed was defense. We weren't digging very many balls and they were. Even if we blocked them, they were right there to pick up the ball and that is where we lost some points."

In both sets, the Royals jumped out to early leads, but were unable to sustain them.

"I think once we got over some of those initial jitters and we got into a groove, we were able to feel more flow and keep it in tempo," said Marian coach Laura Watling. "We also picked up our serving and it helped a lot because it keep Rosary off of their offense, which was huge for us. We were able to get good touches, good blocks and run our offense."

Marian's blocking also stymied Rosary scoring attempts in the first game. The Hurricanes earned 3 straight points late in first set off of blocks.

"We have a very talented and tall front row and we really take advantage of it," said Marian's Sydney Nemtuda (7 kills, 2 aces). "We practice blocking a lot because defense wins games."

In the second set, the Royals adjusted for the blocks, but that wasn't enough to keep the lead.

"We decided to run our middles more. I think we were too obvious in the first game," Fox said. "In the second game, we said run the middles more. Even if it's not the hardest kill, is going to be a point. We just weren't able to pick up the defense."

"In the second set we came in with a whole new mind set," said Rosary libero Martha Konovodoff (8 digs). "We were thinking that we don't want to leave that way, we don't want leave losing a game 25-16. I think they just ran fast on us and we couldn't adjust fast enough."

Both Lauren Hanlon and Rachel Noonan notched 3 blocks for Marian. Hanlon also led the team with 8 kills. Teammate McKayla Wuensch contributed 19 assists and 9 digs.

Meegan Hart led Rosary with 8 kills followed by Erin Burke and Maya Sullivan, who each had 3. Julia Gauthier had 15 assists for the Royals.