Geneva stay hot against scrappy Kaneland team

There's little doubt that it's a good time to be a member of the Geneva girls volleyball team.

Last week the Vikings knocked off defending Western Sun Conference champ Sycamore. They followed that by winning the Glenbard West tournament for the first time on Saturday, including impressive wins over Burlington Central, Glenbard West and Chatham-Glenwood.

Geneva returned to Western Sun play Tuesday in Maple Park and picked up where it left off, beating a hustling, determined Kaneland club by identical 25-17 scores.

"We're excited," said junior middle hitter Kelsey Augustine, who along with Lauren Wicinski led the Vikings with 6 kills. "We're playing a lot of good competition. This weekend was great for us. It just made us better as a team."

The Vikings improved to 16-1 with Tuesday's win, 6-0 in the Western Sun.

"We never walked out of there with that first place trophy so that was a good feeling," Geneva coach K.C. Johnsen said of the weekend title. "They (Kaneland) play pretty smart. We are just happy to come in here and get them in two and go home."

Despite the difference in records, Kaneland (3-8, 1-4) didn't back down. The Knights battled in both games.

"We were awesome, very scrappy," Kaneland coach Todd Weimer. "All the girls had fun. We're really focused on just playing our game, don't worry about making a mistake. They played every point as best they could."

The Knights stayed close early in Game 1. Kaneland held a lead as late as 8-7 on a kill by Casey Komel.

Geneva started to pull away and was up 19-12 when the Knights went on a final mini-surge. A kill by Alyssa Snyder and an ace from Jackie Ream cut the lead to 19-15.

"I always look forward to playing Geneva," Ream said. "I know a lot of the girls. I'm pretty happy. We're getting better. There's always room for improvement but we are improving."

The Vikings closed out Game 1 on perhaps the most exciting point of the match. Grace Burns dove to keep a ball alive that took a funny bounce off Kaneland's short ceiling, and Taylor Whitley eventually put the point away for Geneva with a tip.

"They were really intense when they came out in the beginning and we were surprised," Augustine said. "We kind of built our intensity as the game went on."

Johnsen got his bench involved in the second game with Alex Manetas, Shannon O'Neal and Lauren Fanning all contributing to the win. The Vikings made five early hitting errors but still led most of the game.

Manetas' serve caused Kaneland problems on consecutive points for a 13-8 lead. The Knights had their moments, including a block from Snyder when Wicinski fired a rocket from the back row, but Geneva always kept the Knights a few points behind.

"Lauren went in and dug a couple balls and that picked us up," Johnsen said. "We were pretty balanced tonight."