Scrappy Montini digs way past Immaculate Conception

Shafeeqa Small affectionately calls libero Molly Lucas "a little beast."

She isn't Small's only Montini player who gets after it defensively.

The Broncos hustled and hit their way past Immaculate Conception 25-18, 25-20 on Wednesday night in Lombard in a matchup of perhaps the top two teams on their side of the Suburban Christian Conference.

Lucas had 14 digs, setting the tone for a scrappy Montini effort. The Broncos at times appeared to catch the visiting Knights flat-footed.

"I do think at times we took the air out of their sails," Small said, "to see that many balls dug. We have a lot of depth in our defense. With our libero being our primary passer, they're used to having balls returned. We're not used to seeing a lot of balls put down against us. It was a good win."

Junior middle Morgan Howard had 6 of her 7 kills in Montini's Game 1 win. A Howard kill gave the Broncos a 16-14 lead, and at 16-15 Montini (6-8, 2-1) rolled off 7 straight points to grab control. Howard put down 2 kills and had a block in that stretch.

"She delivered, in my opinion, her best net defending that I've seen out of her this season," Small said. "Her offense has been fairly consistent, but her defense is what we've been working on."

Immaculate Conception (8-3, 2-1) committed 4 errors during that game-turning stretch. The Knights also had a pivotal net violation call in Game 2, giving Montini the lead for good at 19-18 after Immaculate Conception had mounted a rally to tie it. A Kristin Burger kill, Knights hitting error, Howard block and Jamie Schubert ace made it 22-17.

"We just kept shooting ourselves in the foot," Knights coach Jean Field said. "If you're going to have a loss like this, good to have it at this point."

Defense has been a key area of concern for Field, and it came to the forefront again Wednesday.

"We've been harping on defense in practice," Field said, "but I think they just don't seem to get the idea that you have to move your feet. Usually we're pretty scrappy ourselves. But we knew that defense might be one of our weaknesses this year."

Margaret Ryan had 5 kills and 8 digs for the Knights, Kellyanne Remy 4 kills and Colleen Manion 2 kills and 9 digs. Burger had 5 kills for Montini.

"We did a good job today of picking up all the balls," said Montini senior Christina Comella, "and our middles today were really on. We worked as a team and didn't let many balls drop."