Benet was ready for McAuley
The similarity was eery.
Wasn't it just four weeks ago that Benet had its 32nd win, with zero losses, in the bag? Two points away from a win over Joliet Catholic, a date with Mother McAuley for the Autumnfest championship in sight.
The bottom fell out from there. Fifteen straight Joliet Catholic points. Benet's first loss. An undefeated season, and possible national championship out the bag. No Mother McAuley. That was tough to swallow.
The Redwings got their match with the Mighty Macs Friday.
Just like against Joliet Catholic, it was all Benet for a game and change. Up a game, 12-3 in the second, everything going their way.
The only question left was "Where are we going for dinner?"
And then, in what seemed like a blink of an eye for some, there was Mother McAuley celebrating a Game 2 win.
"What just happened here?" a dazed writer asked me, looking up from his computer for the first time in 10 minutes to see the reversal of fortunes.
"McAuley is a great team, is what happened," Benet coach Brad Baker said later.
With Mother McAuley up 5-0 in Game 3, history looked like it was going to repeat itself in the most cruel way.
Only this time, the Benet girls weren't going to fold.
"Coach called a timeout," senior Paige Vargas said, "and the girls said, 'Remember how it felt when we lost to JCA. That feeling will never go away. We do not want to ever feel that way again.' "
For at least another night, the Benet girls will not.
The notion of experience can mean many things. When you wear the name "Mother McAuley" on your chest, that experience is 23 times to the state volleyball tournament and counting.
Surely, the new girls on the block from Benet couldn't match that, right?
Benet's experience meant a little more Friday night. The experience of playing in the toughest sectional in the state, surviving a match with defending champ Naperville Central.
The experience of three girls - Vargas, Natalie Patzin and Ariana Mankus - playing for a club national championship just months ago. Four years of varsity experience for some.
Most of all, the bitter taste of defeat. A loss that led people to question just who is the best volleyball team in Illinois this year.
Benet might have just answered that.
"Mentally, that loss prepared us," senior Jessica Jendryk said. "We knew we could do this."
Even better was doing it all in front of, what Baker estimated was "half the school."
Kudos to the Benet students. Ten fan buses full of kids made the two-hour trek down from the western suburbs to Redbird Arena. That sea of red and black was a far cry from the "10 fans" Jendryk said the girls struggled to draw at the Benet gym as freshmen.
"Our crowd was amazing tonight," Vargas said. "We feed off of that."
jwelge@dailyherald.com