Saints start fast, put away Warriors

Willowbrook had neither answers nor solutions for St. Charles East on Saturday afternoon at home.

The Saints erupted out of the gate of the Class 4A Willowbrook girls volleyball regional final by scoring 21 of the first 25 points and eased to the York sectional semifinals with a convincing 25-9, 25-13 victory in Villa Park.

St. Charles East (33-4), the top seed in the sectional, faces fourth seed Glenbard East, which outlasted Wheaton Warrenville South in three games, in the first semifinal Tuesday in Elmhurst.

Willowbrook bowed out at 20-16.

The famed quote about statistics and lies was nowhere to be found as St. Charles East clicked on all cylinders.

Syracuse-bound senior setter Laura Homann had four times as many assists as the entire Willowbook team, and the Warriors failed to notch a single block against the Saints' formidable hitters.

"We came out really well today," said Homann, who finished with 25 assists, 6 blocks and a pair of aces. "(The game plan) was to keep them out of system. Our outside hitters were putting (my sets) away."

Jacqui Seidel and Meghan Niski had 5- and 6-point service runs, respectively, to give St. Charles East a commanding 12-1 first-game cushion.

Seidel had back-to-back kills to stretch the bulge to 21-4, and the rest of the opener was anticlimactic.

Homann and junior outside hitter Caroline Niski operated seamlessly against the overwhelmed Warriors.

Caroline Niski, who finished with match highs of 10 kills and 8 digs, had a winner to break the final of five second-game deadlocks.

Homann promptly went to the service line and reeled off 10 in a row to give St. Charles East another comfortable lead at 18-7.

Caroline Niski and Seidel combined for 5 kills and 2 block kills during the uninterrupted sequence to frame the Saints' dominance.

"The outside is my favorite spot to hit from," said Niski. "We did very well stopping their momentum (in the second game)."

"They challenged us a little bit more (to open the second game)," said Seidel, who added 6 kills. "We started to take over (behind Homann). She was serving very aggressively and when they did return it, she was putting up great sets to put down."

Samantha Szarmach iced the match for St. Charles East with the last of its kills.

"(Homann) is a great setter," Willowbrook coach Sue Bower said. "We did not play her properly. Our serve-receive was way off. When that's off, we can't get our offense going."

Josie Hopkins had 3 kills to lead Willowbrook.