Home sweet home for St. Charles East

With all the St. Charles East girls volleyball program has accomplished ­- a list that includes 10 sectional titles, six state appearances and two state titles, including last year's - the Saints get to do something tonight they never have before.

Try to advance to state by winning on their home court.

The only thing muting the excitement of hosting the Class 4A St. Charles East supersectional at 6 p.m. tonight is the quality of the opponent the Saints are facing.

Cary-Grove, with a 35-4 record and an earlier victory over St. Charles East (32-6) this season, serves as a huge potential buzzkill to all the fun the Saints could have trying to get to state in front of their home fans.

"We are excited about the opportunity to play back at home," Saints coach Jennie Kull said. "Cary-Grove is a really good team. We're going to have to play our best match to beat them.

"Offensively they have a lot of different weapons. We need to be ready to go. They are very well-rounded teams, very experienced."

Those weapons were on display Thursday night in a 25-8, 25-17 victory over Huntley. Senior setter Abbey Heredia (Jacksonville State) is a four-year starter and holds the school record for career assists and single-season assists.

"We'll definitely look at film of them to see what we can do," Heredia said. "Any team can come out and play well in any game. We're just going to play our game. We can't really control the other side of the net right now."

Heredia runs the show for Cary-Grove, who also has one of the best club setters in the nation in junior Colleen Smith, who led her club team to the national open title last summer and is committed to Indiana. She's playing right side this year and gives Cary-Grove a chance on almost every point for a great set and spike.

Junior outside hitter Kelly Lamberti is the main offensive weapon, and senior Kayla Klinger had 14 kills in a win at rival CL South earlier this year.

There's not many weaknesses with solid passing from libero Sam Mainzer and working middles Colleen Hargrove (senior) and Ashley Rosch (sophomore) into the offense.

And they know they can beat St. Charles East, which they did at the Prairie Ridge Invite earlier this year, 25-21, 25-21.

"It does (give us confidence), but they're always good," Lamberti said. "They're always an awesome team so we're going to have to come out just like we did tonight (Thursday)."

Prairie Ridge coach Patty Langanis, who surpassed 400 wins this season, agreed with Lamberti.

"We have confidence knowing we can play with St. Charles East," Langanis said. "It's going to be on their home court, which is not going to be an easy environment for us. St. Charles East is the returning state champion. They know what it takes to get to state. They've been there. This is all new territory for our school, for our program to make it to state. I don't know how that will play out on the court. We're definitely going to talk about it and make sure we stay focused on what we need to do and not let anything become a distraction to us."

In the loss to Prairie Ridge, the Saints played without sophomore libero Maisey Mulvey. It hasn't been easy for St. Charles East to keep its lineup together this season, and it certainly hasn't gotten any better in the postseason.

Senior Caroline Niski (Maryland) has only played three points in the tournament, the final three in Tuesday's win over St. Charles North. With an ankle injury she suffered Oct. 17 not healed, Niski has been warming up before the Saints matches to see if it is good enough to play.

She didn't get in Thursday, yet was a vocal leader on the bench firing up her teammates during timeouts and between games.

Her sister Meghan Niski, like Caroline and senior Jacqui Seidel (Ball State) key members of last year's state champs, said Caroline is doing everything she can to get back in the lineup.

"Some days it doesn't hurt as much and some days it really bothers her," Meghan Niski said. "(Thursday) it was really bothering her. She warmed up a little but stopped."

Junior Sam Szarmach filled in for Caroline Niski with 7 kills in the Saints' sectional title win over York in three games. Meghan Niski led with 13 kills and Seidel had 11.

While the Saints certainly struggled at times against York, pulling out a Game 3 gives them confidence heading into Saturday that they can come through in the most pressure-packed situations.

"There were definitely nerves but I think we knew we could pull through," Meghan Niski said. "We knew we had to come out with a lot more energy to win the third game."

"They don't get too frustrated like other teams would," Kull said. "That's one thing we talk about it doesn't matter about emotions it matters about getting the job done."

Now the Saints will try to do that on their home floor. With a season that began with the Saints playing at Wredling Middle School for a month while their high school gym floor was repaired, St. Charles East finds it fitting to get a chance to reach state back on their home court.

"We have a brand new floor, new pads, it is exciting," Kull said. "It's going to be nice. That was one of the things we really wanted to push for, one of our goals at the beginning of the year was definitely make sure we got back (to the supersectional) because it was at our home."

Jerry Fitzpatrick contributed to this story.