Burlington Central shakes off Kaneland

New season, same results - for openers anyway.

The Burlington Central girls volleyball team may have a bit of a different look this season, having graduated the likes of Division I recruits Molly Turk (Northern Iowa) and Meghan Zasada (Illinois State), but the defending Class 3A state runner-up Rockets showed in their season opener Tuesday night they won't be any less of a team in 2009.

Led by seniors Stephanie Holthus (Northwestern) and Taylor Scully, BC had enough firepower to hold off error-prone Kaneland 25-19, 25-20 in Burlington.

"We have a lot of new starters and we're just trying to figure out our team chemistry," said Scully, who had 6 kills and 3 aces in the win. "We started out pretty slow but as we got warmer we got better."

Kaneland (2-4) jumped to a 3-0 lead in Game 1 and played the Rockets even until a rash of unforced errors on Kaneland's part allowed Burlington to pull out to a 19-12 lead with Samantha Bohne at the serving line. The closest the Knights would come after that was 23-19 but back-to-back tips by Scully and Holthus gave the Rockets the game.

"There were a lot of nerves out there tonight," said BC coach Marv Leavitt. "We have five sophomores playing and the nerves showed. We have some work to do."

The Rockets came out on fire in Game 2, jumping ahead 4-0. Scully served an ace and had a kill and Holthus had a kill to o help the game-opening run.

But Kaneland fought back again and even held leads of 13-12 and 14-13 before BC sophomore setter Kaitlyn O'Reilly (14 assists) stepped to the service line. Three Kaneland errors and an O'Reilly ace later, the Rockets had an 18-14 lead. Sophomore Katy Dudzinski's kill gave the Knights the serve back but a Scully kill made it 19-15 and the Knights never got closer. Scully's ace closed out the match.

"We had a lot of errors tonight," said Kaneland coach Todd Weimer. "We had a lot of missed serves and a lot of silly mistakes."

Weimer discounted the thought his team might have been intimidated by the Rockets.

"We took them to 3 in the regional finals last year so I don't think we were intimidated," he said. "We're a better team than we were last year and we knew they lost a couple players so we came in her confident. We just made too many errors."

Junior Jessica Lubic had 12 assists for the Knights while Dudzinski had 5 kills and Alyssa Snyder added 3. Kylie Siebert had 8 digs. Holthus had 7 kills and 6 digs for the Rockets, who host perennial power St. Francis on Thursday and then play in the Geneva tournament Saturday, where they could have a rematch with Class 3A state champion Joliet Catholic.

"We have a lot of girls playing on varsity for the first time and we have to learn to play to our strengths," said Leavitt. "We'll get better."