Kudos coming C-G's way deserved

Winning teams are always rightly complimented, but the kudos being thrown the way of the Cary-Grove girls volleyball team now come from every corner.

The Trojans deserve every bit of praise being heaped upon them after Saturday night's virtuoso performance in the Class 4A St. Charles East supersectional.

Cary-Grove (36-4) punched its state ticket for the first time in school history with an impressive 25-20, 25-13 victory over defending champion St. Charles East (32-7) on the Saints' home court.

It started with a statement spike by junior outside hitter Kelly Lamberti (12 kills, 8 digs) and the points continued to flow like water through a burst dam. The Trojans jumped to a 7-1 lead in Game 1 and didn't allow the Saints to pull any closer than 3 points. After they rebounded from a 3-0 deficit in Game 2 with a 17-4 run, it became not a matter of if Cary-Grove would win its first supersectional title but by how wide a margin.

As has been the case in almost every match this season, every player on the floor contributed. Senior setter Abbey Heredia (21 assists, 6 blocks) was nearly flawless, junior right-side hitter (and sometimes setter) Colleen Smith made smart tip kills, middles Colleen Hargrove (4 kills) and Ashley Rosch (6 blocks) were involved weapons, senior hitter Kayla Klinger (4 kills) kept the Saints' block off balance and junior libero Sam Mainzer's passing ignited the offense.

They also have a true leader in 15th-year coach Patty Langanis. She has progressively molded the program into a state contender, and her first supersectional victory elevated her career record to 417-145, a .742 winning percentage.

The Trojans are talented individually. They are lethal collectively.

"All around, they're probably the best team I've faced at the high school level," said St. Charles East outside hitter Meghan Niski, whose team last year defeated a Benet Academy squad that entered the state title match with a record of 40-1. "They force other teams to make errors and they don't make them themselves, so you have to fight for every point to beat them. Tonight, they brought their best game. We tried hard to keep up, but it just wasn't in the cards."

The praise for Cary-Grove from St. Charles East coach Jennie Kull, who has two state titles on her resume, was just as effusive.

"That was a pretty amazing team, and I would be surprised if they don't win the state championship," Kull said. "I think they've worked really hard. They run a quick offense, they serve well - they've got the whole package."

The atta-girls come from varied sources.

"The biggest ones are from people in our community," Hargrove said. "Even our bus drivers who drive us home from our games tell us how amazing we are. We don't want to get cocky, for sure, but it's an amazing feeling to get a compliment like that."

Really good teams know when they are good but still practice like they are not. This team devours game film of its opponent like it's a new Brad Pitt release. Driven by Heredia, they practice intensely. Directed by Langanis, they prepare and play smartly.

Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith likes to attack the season in 4-game increments. The Cary-Grove volleyball team attacks each game in 5-point sequences, never getting too far ahead of the job at hand and never letting all the accolades they receive go to their heads.

"Compliments are awesome, but at the same time it's overwhelming hearing that kind of stuff," Heredia said. "We're just going to keep taking it 5 points at a time, game by game and see what happens. We know we have the talent and the heart and everything, but it's play by play right now, game by game."

Next they will play point by point in a state semifinal against Glenbrook South (36-4) at Redbird Arena on Friday at 6:30 p.m.

"Do they want to win state? Sure," Langanis said. "We talked about that at the very beginning of the year. But it seemed like a goal so far away. Now that we've been able to make it to state we're so much closer to that.

"But nothing's going to change about how we approach practice and nothing's going to change about how we approach a match. We've never been to state, but we just have to keep doing what we've been doing - one point at a time - and not get lost in the moment of it."

If Cary-Grove wins its first state title, the compliments will keep coming for a lifetime.

jfitzpatrick@dailyherald.com