Girls volleyball: Benet falls to Marist at Wheaton championship match

It was a tough lesson, but Benet Academy's girls volleyball team hopes to take away what it learned Saturday night and use it to get even better going forward.

The previously unbeaten Redwings marched to the finals of the Wheaton Classic and battled Marist to the wire before coming up on the short end of a 25-23 third set. While the young team showed flashes of excellence on the court, it was a few youthful mistakes that enabled the RedHawks to pull out the 25-22, 20-25, 25-23 classic for their first championship at the 24-team Wheaton tourney.

"Sometimes the coach saying it all day in practice doesn't do any good and then we get into a match and they say, 'We should listen to what coach says, because they are going to score on those spots,' " Benet coach Brad Baker said, explaining how his team's positioning and execution at times made it too easy for Marist's powerful hitters to finish off plays.

"We just weren't in the right spots at times," he added. "Those are not skill plays. Those are plays that if they want to, we can improve. Obviously, there's lot of little things we can work on to get better, which is a great thing to see."

What is also pretty obvious is that the 15-1 Redwings are already playing superb volleyball. It's just that against programs like Marist - which knocked Benet out of the playoffs last year - they need to be at their best.

In Saturday's championship match outside hitters Lilly Johnson and Claire Byrne combined for 24 kills and first-year starting setter Amy VanEekeren had 36 assists. But the Redwings let a 19-15 lead slip away in the opening set; otherwise they might actually have been able to beat the RedHawks in a sweep.

"We always practice really hard and train really hard to play in matches like that where we know it's going to be super close," said VanEekeren, a junior who joined Johnson on the all-tourney team. "We know it's going to be a hard fight. We put up a good fight against them. We made some little mistakes here and there, but we're going to work at practice to make those better."

VanEekeren came up big down the stretch in the second set with pair of late block kills and Hattie Monson and Olivia Michniak shined on defense as Benet pulled out the equalizer.

But the RedHawks, with tourney MVP Maggie Meyer leading the way with 12 kills, had too much firepower in the end. The outside hitter, fittingly, slammed home the final point of the match, but Marist also hurt the Redwings in the middle for much of the night and senior middle blocker Katie Hogan finished the match with 8 kills and 3 blocks.

"We just toughed out some points which is good. It's hard to simulate those points which is why this tournament is so great for us," said Marist coach Jordan Vidovic, whose 15-1 team dropped a tough match with rival Mother McAuley on Tuesday. "We know there's always a little bit added on whenever these two schools play each other. It's built up over the last couple years, which makes it really fun."

Johnson expects Benet to take away plenty of positives from the tourney.

"We definitely learned how to fight this weekend," the senior said. "We really learned to fight for ourselves. It didn't work in the last match, but I know in the future if we keep working hard it will get there. We really worked on effort this weekend."