Waubonsie breaks past St. Charles E.
Traeger Penicook could see the pattern.
Fortunately for him and his Waubonsie Valley teammates they broke the pattern - and in the process, St. Charles East.
After a first volleyball game in which Waubonsie Valley (9-7, 4-0) held game point four times before finally winning 30-28, the Warriors controlled most of the second Upstate Eight Conference game, taking it 25-17 in Aurora.
"Being in a close game, if we would have lost we have a tendency of shutting down for the second game," said Penicook, who had 2 aces in a key 7-0 run that gave Waubonsie a 13-7 lead in the second game.
"So it was a good thing that we could pull it out at the end there and step up and show what we should have done in the first game," Penicook said. His 9 kills matched younger brother Russell, both behind Connor Dougherty and Scott Johnson with 14 and 12 kills for the Warriors, respectively.
St. Charles East coach Kate McCullagh admitted her team was in "a pretty tough run," but initially the Saints (10-11, 2-2) pushed Waubonsie Valley to the brink. The greatest margin was 3 points, the last time 17-14 on a combo block by Waubonsie's Jordan James and Russell Penicook.
St. Charles East used kills from Eric Coleman, Jack Rasmussen, Taylor Flahaven and Jeff Jones - who had 30 assists - plus a Waubonsie service miscue, to go up 25-24.
A serve into the net ended the chance. Another error ended the game.
"I think we missed about three serves on game point, and that's what killed us," McCullagh said. "I'm not sure they were doing anything special at that point, we were beating ourselves at the end."
Waubonsie Valley coach Al Lagger saw some of that on his side as well.
"We scrimmaged our JV team yesterday and we were a little iffy," he said. "That's what showed in the first game. Then, when we picked it up in the second game and played our game, we knew we could pull away."
Game 2 started close, Waubonsie's Robert Wieland hammering it down left-handed to tie the score 6-6. Traeger Penicook's serving began the Warriors' roll. The Saints closed to within 18-14 but again there were too many errors for a sustained run.
That rained on the parade of Coleman, a former Warrior who moved to St. Charles as a sophomore.
"Today we wanted to come out strong and really get into them, because I played at Waubonsie my freshman year," he said. "So beating them my senior year would be pretty sweet. It didn't happen today, but the credit goes to them."