Streamwood takes 6th at Huntley
Girls volleyball
At Huntley: Last season, Streamwood snuck up on everyone at the Huntley Volleyball Invite.
This time the Sabers and Katie Post didn't have the luxury.
After finishing second in their pool, the Sabres fell in the fifth-place match to St. Ignatius 25-23, 18-25, 25-23.
Streamwood (12-14) opened with the misfortune of dropping a 25-16, 25-23 match to state-ranked Sycamore in pool play.
"We played Sycamore earlier in the season and we weren't too worried," said Post, who finished the tournament with 52 kills, 36 digs, 8 blocks, 4 aces. "We were kind of disappointed of how we lost."
The Sabres may have suffered their toughest loss of the weekend when setter Amber Lightbourne re-injured her thumb. Lightbourne, who missed the fist month of the season with a dislocated thumb, went down in Game 2 against St. Ignatius. But in her absence the Sabres got a huge spark from Adrianna Salgado.
Salgado finished with 7 assists and helped Streamwood bounce back from a 25-13 loss in Game 1 to take a 25-18 victory in Game 2, but St. Ignatius and hitter Rory Arrigo proved too much in Game 3.
"Adrianna was our setter when Amber was out," Streamwood coach Kevin Kwon said. "They're comfortable with her. The girls are comfortable with both of them."
Sycamore (26-0) rolled to a 26-24, 25-11 championship victory over Oregon (20-7) and Marian Central (21-6) defeated Joliet (13-11) 13-25, 25-23, 25-19 to take third place.
But the real heat -- literally and figuratively -- was in the Gold Pool, which also included host Huntley.
St. Ignatius (16-12) upended Huntley (11-15) 25-13, 16-25, 15-3 in the opening match of Gold Pool, with Streamwood running past Montini (14-14-2) 25-21, 25-12 to set up the final round. Post finished with 12 kills against Montini, with Danielle Fracasso adding 6 kills for the Broncos setting up Montini and Huntley for seventh place.
The Broncos rebounded from the Streamwood loss by beating Huntley 25-21, 25-22, claiming 7th.
Montini broke a 19-19 tie and closed out Game 1 on a 6-1 run before jumping out early against Huntley in Game 2. The Red Raiders went down 17-11 and never recovered falling 25-22 in Game 2. Like Streamwood, Huntley had a tall order in pool play facing eventual second place Oregon 25-19, 25-21.
"They came out hyped to play Oregon," Huntley coach Michelle Jakubowski said. "They really wanted to be in the championship bracket. We play with everyone and we get down 2 or 3 points and we can't get it back."
Defending champion St. Edward ended its tournament on a good note as well, beating Harlem 25-11, 16-25, 25-21 after falling to Jacobs in the opening match of the Silver Pool. The Green Wave (11-16) broke a 20-all tie in the final game when the Huskies recorded a hitting error. Stephanie Werner notched an ace and Katie Yohn had a block to put St. Edward up 23-20. Harlem scored, but Taylor Barone responded with a kill before another hitting error ended the game.
Jacobs (12-14) also ended on a good note, after the Golden Eagles bounced back from a 24-21 deficit in Game 3 to defeat Rockford Lutheran (15-16) 14-25, 25-20, 28-26.
"They finally just reached down and got the energy and wanted to win," Jacobs coach Lisa Dwyer.
-- Matt Stacionis