Rosary outlasts Montini

Rosary coach Lisa Kasper couldn't help but peer over at a scrappy Montini opponent with a tinge of pride.

"I coach at Sunsetters (Volleyball Club), so a lot of those kids have played for me," Kasper said. "I thought they did a fantastic job. They have a nice little team, little being the operative word. Not a lot of height, but they hung in there."

Kasper could praise the Broncos - and be thankful her Royals made it out of Lombard with a 25-20, 22-25, 25-18 win on Tuesday night.

Rosary (2-1) let a 17-6 lead slip away in Game 2 but shut the door in the third game.

"That's something we've been struggling with, is our consistency," Kasper said. "It was nice that we were able to pull it out and dominate the third game."

Up a game and with a commanding lead in the second, Rosary looked well on its way to a workmanlike victory. But a series of hitting errors caused by shaky passing allowed Montini (3-3) to come all the way back to tie it at 21-21 on an Elizabeth Graczyk kill.

A pair of Morgan Howard aces made it 24-21 Montini and a Jamie Schubert kill from the back row closed out the big rally.

Schubert had 5 kills, sharing Montini's match-high honors with Kristin Burger.

"We ran their defense a lot more than they expected with our back-row attack," first-year Montini coach Shafeeqa Small said. "We got some strong little bangers out of the back row."

Rosary quickly regained momentum in Game 3, scoring first on a Montini substition error and making it 4-0 on kills by Emily Weber, Shannon Leahy and Amelia Wegman.

Like in Game 1, Rosary pulled away on the service line. At 15-10 Weber served up 3 aces and had 5 points on serve to make it 20-10. A Weber kill, one of her match-high 12, wrapped it up.

"If we have strong serving and get them out of their serve receive we can get them out of the flow of their game," Weber said, "and it's much easier for us."

Wegman added 8 kills, Leahy 6 and Breann Maryanski 5 for Rosary. Abby Konovodoff had 15 assists and Lindsay Juriga 12.

"We have to do a better job of carrying our momentum over," Small said. "Even I got caught up in the heat of it. That lineup mistake, that was total adrenaline taking over. We started off at a deficit, were a little awestruck and had a hard time putting it all back together again. But overall I'm very proud of the girls."