Cary-Grove nails down PR Invite title by beating St. Charles East
The girls volleyball teams from St. Charles East and Cary-Grove were on a collision course throughout Saturday's Prairie Ridge Invitational.
St. Charles East, the defending Class 4A champion ranked No. 2 in the Daily Herald Top 20, swept 2-game matches from Prairie Ridge, Naperville Central, Barrington and Fenwick.
Cary-Grove, ranked No. 6, did likewise, setting the stage for a de facto title tilt in the final matchup of the five-match, round-robin tournament.
When the two powers finally met, it was Cary-Grove's turn to shine. While the Saints struggled with their passing, the Trojans fired on all cylinders. Senior setter Abbey Heredia divided her 25 assists between junior hitters Kelly Lamberti, Colleen Smith and Kayla Klinger, and sophomore middle blocker Ashley Rosch contributed 8 blocks to lead Cary-Grove (11-1) to its second tournament title in as many weekends with a 25-21, 25-21 victory. The Trojans won the Jacobs tournament last Saturday.
"This past week we worked so hard and every practice was intense," Smith said. "We knew we had to come out here and work hard and play as a team to take the trophy."
Smith, who recently committed to Indiana University as a setter, was a force against the Saints as a right-side hitter. She killed 7-of-8 attempts, including the final 2 points of the match.
"Colleen stepping up and hitting opened up a whole new part of our offense," Heredia said. "It's going to be so much easier to spread everything around now. She worked really hard this summer on her hitting and now we have a full front line capable of killing the ball every time. It makes my decisions a lot easier."
Smith has come a long way as a hitter in a short time.
"This summer we started training Colleen to hit and she was really struggling because she had never hit before in her life," Cary-Grove coach Patty Langanis said. "But we knew we needed her on the court and needed her to hit. So for her to score against St. Charles East almost every single time she touched the ball... We never expected her to develop into such a dynamic hitter so quickly. It's impressive to see because it opens up Lamberti and Klinger to do more work in the frontcourt."
The Saints fell behind 9-1 in Game 1, partly due to passing errors and partly due to a kill and a block for a point by Lamberti, who had 7 kills in the match and a team-high 51 for the tournament.
St. Charles East (7-2) rallied to pull within 20-18, a run fueled by 3 of sophomore Meghan Niski's 8 kills and another by senior Caroline Niski (7 kills). However, the Trojans ran off the next 4 points and closed out the first game on a booming spike by Smith that deflected off the Saints' block.
"They are a very good team," Meghan Niski said. "I think they just came out with more energy and they played more together. Our ball control was not as good as we can do. I think we could have played better, but they played very good."
A more tightly contested Game 2 featured 4 ties and 2 lead changes. Cary-Grove took a 21-20 lead when the Saints sent a serve into the net and followed with a hitting error. A Rosch block kill and Smith's final 2 kills sealed Cary-Grove's first Prairie Ridge Invitational title.
"I think Cary-Grove is a very good team, very talented and they have a lot of weapons," St. Charles East coach Jennie Kull said, "but I don't think we did them justice today because we couldn't control the ball. Our ball control broke down, bottom line. We do have a lot of weapons, but you can't set them when you can't control the ball."
Prairie Ridge finished the tournament with a 3-2 record, followed by Barrington (2-3), Naperville Central (1-4) and Fenwick (0-5).