Batavia fired up after beating Sycamore

From veteran head coach Lori Trippi-Payne to the last player on the bench, Batavia is a team that thrives on emotion.

Trippi-Payne and the Bulldogs had a lot to be excited about Thursday, beating Sycamore for the first time since 2005, 25-19, 25-23 to set up a Western Sun Conference showdown for first place Tuesday night at Geneva.

"We play better as a team if we get excited for each other," senior middle hitter Melissa Norville said. "It gets us more pumped up."

Batavia (8-4, 5-1) moved into sole possession of second place in conference, a game ahead of Sycamore (9-3, 4-2).

The Bulldogs are bidding for their first conference title since sharing the crown with Sycamore in 2005. Their win Thursday came on Alumni Night in Batavia.

"We've been waiting to beat Sycamore for about three years," senior co-captain Laura Doolin said. "They have such a strong program. We came in, we knew what they were going to do, and we were ready to beat them."

Sycamore came out swinging early in Game 1. Despite three early kills by their star Sam Thrower, the Bulldogs hung tough.

It turned out when Sycamore scored the first point of the match, it would be its only lead of the night.

"I think we made one adjustment on defense against their middle attack midway through the first game," Trippi-Payne said. "I just thought we served them really tough and kept them out of what they wanted to do so our block was able to read some things."

Game 1 was tied at 1, 10, 13 and 14. Batavia took the lead for good on a net violation, one of 11 various errors for the Spartans in the game.

Batavia, meanwhile, played solid fundamental volleyball, with no service errors and just 2 hitting errors in the first game.

"That's one of our traits of Batavia volleyball, we are a tough-serving team," Trippi-Payne said.

Batavia scored the final four points. Norville's block got the Bulldogs to game point, then Doolin took one of Katie Rueffer's 23 assists and fired a rocket down the left line.

Doolin led the Bulldogs with 12 kills and Norville added 7 and 2 blocks.

"You've got to give these kids a lot of credit," Trippi-Payne said. "We have an experienced team. We knew we could do this, and we had them scouted very well."

Batavia didn't let up in Game 2. The Bulldogs grabbed a 9-4 lead, with Doolin providing 3 points on kills, forcing a Sycamore timeout.

Batavia led by as many as 7 points at 11-4 and 14-7, but the Spartans rallied behind Thrower and Brittnay Olsen plus breakdowns in Batavia's serve-receive, tying the game at 16, 19 and 20.

"We were in a little rut on our serve-receive," Doolin said. "We realized after the timeout that this is our chance to beat Sycamore and we are not going to let anything stop us."

Norville's ace - the only one of the night for Batavia - gave the Bulldogs a 22-20 lead. An amazing dig by Taylor Koncelik (5 kills, 9 digs) on a blast by Thrower led to a kill from freshman Mary Nilles and a 23-20 lead.

The Bulldogs closed out the match on Doolin's kill from the back row, setting the stage for a shot at tying Geneva for the conference lead Tuesday.

"We are so fired up to beat them, and obviously that is a huge rivalry for us," Doolin said. "We are just going to have a scouting report, practice hard, and I think we have a really good chance of beating them."