Joliet Catholic too tough for Crystal Lake Central

NORMAL - Crystal Lake Central may not have played as well as it is capable of here Friday, but the Tigers would have had to play out of their minds to win this one.

Joliet Catholic Academy, the defending Class 3A state champion and a team that is ranked in the Top 10 in the nation by two national volleyball polls, won its 45th straight match against an Illinois team, downing the Tigers 25-20, 25-17 in the Class 3A semifinals at Redbird Arena.

The Angels will take a 40-1 record into today's state title match against Breese Mater Dei (35-6), the same team JCA beat in the state semifinals last year. CL Central (37-4) will take on Sycamore (34-7) for third place.

"We played hard and I'm really proud of these girls," said CL Central coach Doug Blundy, whose team stayed at Redbird and supported District 155 sister school Cary-Grove in its Class 4A semifinal win over Glenbrook South.

"We've played better on many occasions but our serve and serve receive let us down today. That could be us, that could be them. They're a very good team and we knew what we had to do to beat them, we just didn't do it today."

While Central held early leads in both games, the Angels just had too many weapons. Senior Annmarie Hickey led the way for JCA with 8 kills and 5 digs, while Lainey Wyman added 8 kills and Alyssa Warren had 6. Senior setter Jennifer Murphy had 20 assists.

"I felt we played solid," said JCA coach Christine Scheibe. "We didn't feel we played our best volleyball but everybody contributed and everybody played a part."

Promising sophomore Amelia Anderson led the Tigers with 11 kills but no other Central player had more than 3 kills. Sophomore libero Julie Jeziorowski had 6 digs.

"The farther you go the more disappointing it is when you lose," said Blundy, whose 2007 team won the 3A championship.

"This is disappointing but we've got another match and as we've said all along we're going to play hard and we're going to have fun."