Girls volleyball: Jacobs aces Dundee-Crown

After some recent issues, Jacobs' volleyball team made serving a priority in practices leading up to their regional opener.

The extra work paid off as the Golden Eagles fired 14 aces while downing Fox Valley rival Dundee-Crown, 25-12, 25-17, in the first round of the Class 4A South Elgin regional Monday night.

Ireland Van Stone led the ace parade with 5, but 5 different Eagles had at least 2.

"We worked on our serving at our Saturday practice," said Jacobs coach Lisa Dwyer. "We had some missed serves in our match against Cary. We had 7 in the third game, so I think that we really wanted to make up for that. We did some extra work on our serving because of it. We didn't want to have those big gaps in our game and wanted to make the other team handle the ball."

The Chargers led 10-8 in the second set, but Jacobs pulled ahead with a 4-0 run. The Eagles pulled even at 10 on - what else - an ace by Taishnayilesdi Ramirez. The Eagles slowly pulled away from there.

Maggie Wallenberger led the offense with 12 kills. Van Stone added 5 and Jaclyn Poirier 4 for Jacobs (15-17), which will face St. Charles East in Tuesday's 5:30 p.m. semifinal.

"We mixed the offense up a little bit to keep the defense on their toes," Dwyer said, "And it helped us as well."

Katelyn Lodi also had 3 aces for Jacobs.

The first set was all Jacobs, as the Eagles raced out to a 10-1 lead. Rachel Kaczorowski served 3 aces during a 6-0 run that put the Golden Eagles firmly in control.

The Chargers got within 17-9 on an ace of their own by Jenna Brown, but a tip by Van Stone got Jacobs a sideout and Van Stone reeled off 3 straight aces from the service line.

Brown, Alyssa Crenshaw and Claire Muhvic each had 3 kills for Dundee-Crown.

In the second game at South Elgin, Bartlett defeated Larkin, 25-9, 25-9. The Hawks will play host South Elgin on Tuesday night.