Girls volleyball: Huntley takes regional final from Hampshire
Playing for the third time this season, the Huntley and Hampshire girls volleyball teams were pretty familiar with each other. So the Red Raiders changed things up a little bit.
With that element of surprise and a balanced attack, Huntley held off a late Whip-Purs rally to win the Class 4A Hampshire regional, 25-18, 25-22.
Huntley (26-7) will take on St. Charles East in the second semifinal of the DeKalb sectional on Monday. The Red Raiders won the 24th regional title in program history and fourth under coach Karen Naymola.
The Raiders were 2 points from clinching the match, leading 23-19 in Set 2 when they faltered a bit. A couple of hitting errors and a missed serve allowed Hampshire to get within 24-22. But a kill by Emma Konie finally put the match away.
"We made some adjustments defensively," said Naymola. "They were trying to force everything down the lines, so we moved our defense over, and I thought Sarah Zayas played remarkable tonight. Her defense kept us alive."
Setter Taylor Jakubowski spread her 23 assists around. Loren Alberts and Julia Johnson led Huntley with 5 kills apiece. Marissa Deem, Emma Konie and Jakubowski contributed 4 apiece.
Magdeline Seagren led Hampshire with 7 kills and 2 blocks. Sophie Holtz kept the offense running with 10 assists.
Zayas came up with 12 digs for Huntley, some of them spectacular, such as a dive along the baseline to come up with what looked like a sure kill.
"Facing the same team three times, they start to notice some of the patterns that your team does, so we have to be wary about changing things up on our own side and knowing what they're going to bring for us," said Zayas. "They know what we're going to bring, so we have to change it up on our side."
Confidence in their defense allowed the Raiders' front-liners to swing for the fences."
"Coach told us to swing away, because we knew they were going to try to block us obviously," Alberts said. "And we knew our defense had our backs if we got blocked, so we just started firing."
Huntley trailed only once, at 3-2, in winning the first set. Leading 19-16, the Raiders reeled off 5 straight points to force a set point. Hampshire got a side out and added another point, but Deem's kill finished it off.
Behind Seagren's 7, Hampshire stuck with Huntley the entire night. The Whips jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead in the second set before Huntley took the lead with an 8-2 run. The run at the end made the Huntley side a little nervous as well.
The loss put an end to an otherwise encouraging season for Hampshire.
"Those girls worked really hard the whole season," said Hampshire coach Ramon Borrero. "We had all the kinds of situations that you can have with the team, and we enjoyed and we suffered together. I'm really proud of the effort they showed tonight and during the season."