By any tune, this band of Trojans singing sweetly
It's a new ritual for the Cary-Grove girls volleyball team and an oddly folksy one at that.
First seen before the Class 4A Barrington regional title match, the Trojans get together, hug one another, sway back and forth with big smiles on their faces and sing "Kumbaya, my Lord, Kumbaya."
"Then they dance to it and add people one at a time," Cary-Grove coach Patty Langanis said. "We did it twice (Thursday night). It's the weirdest tradition I've ever seen. It's bizarre."
The new ritual started as a joke at a morning practice last week. The girls arrived for practice and their gym, they said, was freezing. So the players hugged each other for body heat just to get warm and pretty soon, well, they broke into the 1930s-era spiritual.
The 2005 White Sox had "Don't Stop Believing.'" The 2009 Trojans have "Kumbaya." Whatever the theme song, Cary-Grove has its opponents singing a somber tune this postseason.
One year after enduring a stunning upset in a regional final against Jacobs when seeded No. 1, Cary-Grove (35-4) is playing a masterful brand of volleyball. The Trojans have not been pushed to a third game in any of their 4 postseason matches thus far, including Thursday's 25-8, 25-17 dismantling of Huntley on the Red Raiders' home court. In fact, Game 2 against Huntley was the first time they've allowed an opponent as many as 17 points in a single game.
Thursday's victory gave the school its second girls volleyball sectional title. The 2001 Trojans, the first Cary-Grove squad to reach such heights, were led by now-assistant coach Amy Kaplan (Kentucky), Cassie McLaughlin (Northwestern) and Jamie Hastings (Western Illinois). Those were the only club players 400-win coach Langanis had that year. The rest, as she pointed out, were "basketball and track girls."
This year's team is comprised primarily of club-trained volleyball players, including Division I setters Abbey Heredia (Jacksonville State) and Colleen Smith (Indiana), top junior D-1 hitting prospect Kelly Lamberti, senior outside hitter Kayla Klinger, junior libero Sam Mainzer and versatile athletes like middles Colleen Hargrove and Ashley Rosch.
Though the '01 team was special in its unique way, the Heredia-led '09 Trojans are more formidable, according to Langanis.
"This team is more powerful throughout," she said. "We have weapons at every single spot. We have a really dynamic setter in Abbey, probably the best I've ever worked with. She mixes up the offense so well. There are times when I think, 'Just give the ball to Lamberti,' but Abbey doesn't. She mixes it up and keeps that block so off-guard on the other side of the net.
"What's different about this team is that every hitter at every position has the ability to terminate. We don't have a weak spot. I've tried to figure out if I was scouting us, where is our weak spot. There isn't one. On any given night Colleen Smith will take over, or Hargrove, or Lamberti or Klinger. You just don't know what's going to work, but Abbey does a great job of finding what will work and goes after it."
Another key for the Trojans is their refusal to give up on a point.
After winning Game 1 against Huntley, Cary-Grove found itself tied at 5 in Game 2. Huntley looked as though it would take its first lead of the match when a spike, originally dug by Mainzer, headed toward the Cary-Grove cheering section. But Heredia made a diving "up" to keep the ball alive and Mainzer, just feet from the bleachers, angled a shot 40 feet over her head and over the net to keep the point going.
"Abbey made a great up, and I just knew I had to get it back over the net," Mainzer said.
"That was awesome," Smith said. "We played with so much heart." Huntley eventually sent a kill attempt wide and the Trojans were reinvigorated.
Precisely that type of point-by-point effort has landed Cary-Grove in Saturday's 6 p.m. supersectional against defending Class 4A champion St. Charles East (32-6), which will have home-court advantage.
"It's a fantastic feeling," Langanis said. "All 16 girls on the roster are so dedicated to our goal this season. Some of the girls that have never stepped on the varsity court want it just as much as the girls on the court. The power of the whole team focusing on one goal is really coming through as we get to the latter part of the season. They're a wonderful group of girls and they work they're butts off.
"They've wanted this since last spring. To see it unfolding in front of them and to see the opportunities they are creating for themselves... I'm so proud of them."
If the Trojans remain focused and keep playing point by point, they might be singing Kumbaya all the way to Redbird Arena.
jfitzpatrick@dailyherald.com