Vonderhaar, St. Francis golden in Early Bird

St. Francis senior Meg Vonderhaar will play volleyball under the Golden Dome a year from now.

On Saturday, the Notre Dame recruit and her Spartan teammates earned gold stars for their dramatic Game 2 comeback in the championship match of the 16-team Early Bird Classic hosted by Fremd High School.

Trailing 18-11 in the Game 2, the Spartans charged back for a 25-19, 25-22 victory to hand St. Charles East its first loss in nine matches.

For coach Peg Kopec's Spartans, it was their second straight Early Bird Crown as they improved to 6-0.

Vonderhaar finished the match with 14 kills, 11 digs and 3 blocks.

"Our serve receive is what really picked us up (when Spartans trailed 18-11 in Game 2)," Vonderhaar said. "We shuffled people around and had different players picking us up. Maddie Defino, Theresa Katarzynski and Grace Churney all played real well back there."

The Spartans were without senior libero Gina Madonia, who was injured in the Spartans' 25-20, 21-25, 25-23 semifinal win over Fremd when she hit her head near the scorer's table while going after a ball in Game 1.

"Without Gina, we realized we had to pick it up with our other players," Vonderhaar said.

Kopec though Madonia hit a post on the table.

"It was scary to see," the veteran coach said. "I think she hit it head-on. She's such a tough girl."

Madonia remained on the sidelines the rest of the day for precautionary reasons.

Churney added 10 kills and 10 digs for the Spartans.

"Grace was excellent on serve receive," said Kopec, who also received 13 digs from Katarzynski and 5 from Defino.

Setter Kelly Reinke handed out 30 assists while Sarah Dubiel had 4 blocks and Daiva Wise 3 with 6 kills.

"Two things were important from this match," Kopec said. "One was that the girls played with confidence and two was how they came from behind in Game 2. Our phrase is that individuals win games, and teams win championships. This was really a team."

Senior Samantha Szarmach led the Saints with 11 kills while sophomore setter Erienne Barry collected 15 assists. Junior Nichole Lambert had 3 blocks.

"St. Francis is a good team," said St. Charles coach Jennie Kull. "And they have good players. We pretty much mentally gave the match away.

"We have not been playing teams as aggressive as the ones in this tournament. We knew what we had to do, but mentally we did not execute. That will come as the season goes on."

A side out kill by Vonderhaar brought the Spartans to within 22-21 in Game 2. She then served out the match, starting with an ace to tie it at 22-22.

A block by Churney, kill by Haley Gable and net call on St. Charles East ended the match.

Last year, all-stater Kelsey Robinson helped lead St. Francis to the Early Bird title.

"I played three years with her so I learned a lot from Kelsey," said Vonderhaar, whose mother Nancy celebrated her birthday Saturday. "This year, Gina (Madonia), Kelly (Reinke) and I are all working together as a captains.

"We know there is a lot of tradition here. But now it's about this team. We see this as "our" team. We know about the tradition (Kopec has more than 1,000 wins and multiple state crowns) and it is our decision to keep it up."

They sure kept it up with a golden performance on Saturday.