Wave goes out a winner
NORMAL - Only two teams in each class win their final match of the season, and in Class 2A St. Edward is one of them this year.
The Green Wave, playing much more relaxed than it did on Friday, disposed of Princeton 25-22, 26-24 at Redbird Arena here Saturday afternoon to claim third place in the IHSA Class 2A girls volleyball state tournament.
It's the best finish in program history for St. Edward, which took fourth place in Class A in 2004, coach Jaime Walton's first season at the helm of the program.
"(Friday) was a tough loss," said Walton of the Wave's setback against eventual state champion Freeburg in the semifinals. "We felt we could have been in the championship. But we got another chance to play and I'm loving the win we got today."
St. Edward (24-18) was the aggressor from the first serve of Saturday's match, and it needed to be as Princeton (28-11) brought an aggressive defense to the court. The Tigresses actually had a 20-18 lead in Game 1 before a Molly Kelly kill gave the Wave a sideout and put senior Katie Yohn at the service line. Three straight Princeton errors and a kill from junior Kristi Knott gave St. Edward a 23-20 lead and Princeton couldn't recover. The Green Wave closed out the game with a powerful cross-court kill from senior Kristen Haggenjos.
"Things just flowed a lot better for us today because we didn't have a front line of all 6-foot kids to face," Walton said. "Freeburg was just huge and this team wasn't."
The Wave fell behind 8-5 in Game 2 before a Yohn kill gave sophomore Margie Haggenjos the serve. Kelly had a kill and Princeton, which had 18 errors in the match, committed a hitting error and two net violations sandwiched around a Kelly kill to give St. Edward a 10-8 advantage. The Wave then held the lead for most of the game until Princeton mounted a comeback and eventually used a Lean Shaw kill to gain the serve and game point with a 24-23 lead. Walton then called a timeout to calm things down.
"I just wanted to settle them down," she said. "You look up and see game point and we just needed to regroup."
Kristen Haggenjos then delivered the last of her match-high 12 kills after St. Edward successfully blocked Shaw twice to tie the game and put senior Rachael Varley at the service line.
"(Shaw) is the person we were focusing on," Walton said. "We triple-blocked her and keyed on her to get that sideout."
A Princeton net violation put St. Edward at match point and Varley finished off the Tigresses with an ace that fell in between three Princeton defenders.
Kristen Haggenjos, a four-year varsity player for the Green Wave, added 8 digs while Yohn had 10 kills and 8 assists for St. Edward. Varley had 11 assists and Margie Haggenjos played stellar defense with 14 digs.
"Besides winning state this is the best way to go out," said Kristen Haggenjos, who will compete at Loyola-Chicago next year on scholarship. "It will be very sad to go but I'm very lucky to be a part of this."
As was Kelly, one of the shining stars of the postseason run.
"We're really happy to be the team to be the best ever at the school," she said. "This is the most favorite team I've ever been on."
With eight seniors, Walton figured her team had a chance to be successful this season.
"I definitely knew we had the personnel and if we could put it together we might be able to do this, but it was a big if," she said. "Those eight seniors knew it was now or never. We knew what to expect this year. We struggled at the beginning of the year and everybody likes to talk about our 18 losses but in and out of our conference we played a tough schedule and a lot of those losses were good losses.
"We hit our peak at the right time. This is my favorite team I've ever coached. They're just a great group of kids. We just kept fighting because there was a light at the end of the tunnel and we knew it."
That light shined brightly for the Green Wave on Saturday.
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Photo Galleries</h2> <ul class="gallery"> <li><a href="/story/?id=251233">State girls volleyball tourney images</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>