Cary-Grove dethrones defending champs

While Kelly Lamberti said Cary-Grove approached Saturday's Class 4A St. Charles East supersectional like any other match, the result wasn't like any other win.

No, it only goes down as the biggest win in program history, a decisive 25-20, 25-13 victory over St. Charles East on the Saints' home court that sends the Trojans to the state tournament for the first time.

Cary-Grove (36-4) will play Glenbrook South in the Class 4A semifinals at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Redbird Arena in Normal.

"We just went at it like it was another game for us," Lamberti said. "We had to go out and play almost a perfect game to beat them because they are an awesome team."

St. Charles East, denied in its bid to repeat as state champs and get to state a third straight year, ends its season at 32-7.

The banged-up Saints weren't at 100 percent Saturday night or throughout the postseason but even at full strength they would have had a hard time staying with the Trojans.

"Cary-Grove played almost a flawless match," Saints coach Jennie Kull said. "They exploited our weaknesses. They came tonight on a mission. Our kids have had a lot of adversity and we were hoping they could use that adversity and bring it out on the court but we just didn't have anything left. We would have had to play a little better and they would have had to play a little worse. That is a great team."

Other than 10 missed serves, which accounted for about a third of the Saints' total, Cary-Grove was pretty much perfect. The Trojans never trailed in the opening game, and after falling behind 4-0 early in Game 2, took control for good when Colleen Smith rattled off 10 straight service points for a 17-7 advantage.

"Everything was working," Smith said. "They played really hard and we knew we had to come in and work hard because they weren't going to let a ball drop."

Trojans coach Patty Langanis said she is used to that kind of effort from her team, which has not lost sight of the work it takes to reach its goal.

"Our team this year has been so focused on every single point and they haven't lost that," Langanis said. "It's so amazing to uphold that focus throughout the season."

Abbey Heredia set Lamberti for a rocket kill on the first point of the match and the Trojans never looked back. After a back-row kill from Sam Szarmach tied the match at 1, Heredia had her first of several quick tip/push kills deep to the corners that the Saints never could stop.

"I try to see the open spots," Heredia said. "When I usually go to the corners it's usually because the play before has been a short play so I know they are all running in and I throw it deep."

Kull took her two timeouts with Cary-Grove leading 11-4 and 19-13. St. Charles East pulled as close as 20-17 on a Trojans lift.

Langanis called time and her team responded with a clean sideout, put away by Lamberti, who also powered down game point moments later.

"We came out with so much energy and power," Heredia said. "St. Charles East is a great team and I think our serving really threw them off. We just played with so much heart. We weren't going to take a loss as an answer tonight."

Played in front of a near capacity crowd, the Saints fans let out one of their biggest cheers of the night down 12-7 in Game 2.

That's when Kull inserted Caroline Niski, who had played only three points since suffering a bone bruise on her ankle Oct. 17. Even that emotional lift did little to slow Cary-Grove, who outscored the Saints 13-6 after Niski entered and won match point on a St. Charles East hitting error.

Both Niski and Jacqui Seidel, headed to Maryland and Ball State, respectively, are three-year starters and state veterans who have battled late-season injuries. Neither used them as an excuse.

"It's been really hard, I'm not going to lie," Niski said. "But I'm just so proud of our team that we got this far. This was our goal to get back in our home gym. As a senior it's kind of nice getting to play your last game here. We'd like to go down to ISU as any team would especially since this is my third year on varsity and first time I haven't. But I'm just so happy, so blessed to have such a good team."

Seidel and Caroline's sophomore sister Meghan led the Saints with 4 kills.

"I'm just really sad it has ended," Seidel said. "They are very well-rounded, phenomenal team that forces you to make errors. We just couldn't get in a good rhythm and start to control our game. They have the experience and we just needed to come back and we couldn't get a good rhythm going."

Lamberti led both teams with 12 kills to go with 8 digs. Heredia set 21 assists and tied Ashley Rosch with 6 blocks. Kayla Klinger led the Trojans' tough serving with 4 aces.

Now the Trojans are headed to Normal, where Langanis said she expected this talented group to be.

"We sat down, Abbey, Kalyla and I, this summer and we knew we wanted to make it to state, we knew we wanted to be the first Cary-Grove volleyball team to do it," Langanis said. "So this is what we expected, but the feeling is undescribable to actually get to accomplish that."