West Chicago united in victory at Willowbrook
Julia Conard doesn't play with many of her West Chicago teammates during club volleyball season.
Back together, it's a potent group to watch.
The No. 10 Wildcats dominated the season-opening Willowbrook Invitational, beating DuPage Valley Conference rival Wheaton Warrenville South 25-19, 25-14 to win the championship match of the eight-team tournament.
In five matches West Chicago (5-0) didn't lose a set, allowing only one opponent to score 20 points in a set.
"It's exciting, coming back off of club season, to see how everybody else improved," said junior outside Conard, who plays for Club Fusion. "There's girls from about three or four different clubs coming together as one. This being our first couple matches and first tournament I thought we meshed well for the most part."
WW South (5-1) could provide West Chicago's stiffest challenge once the DVC wars begin. If so, Saturday was a convincing argument for why the Wildcats are the team to beat.
West Chicago set the tone early in both sets. In the first the Wildcats rolled out to an 11-4 lead, a Conard kill and Jen Konchar ace punctuating the early run. Konchar also had 2 kills and senior middle Kathy Fletcher a kill and ace in that early stretch.
"We came out from the get go and played our game," Conard said. "We seemed to make shots and played smart out there. It's nice to win this tournament but it's also nice to be able to play one of our bigger rivals and pull it out."
WW South got within 20-16 on a kill and ace by Tennessee-bound middle Shealyn Kolosky, but Conard finished the set with 3 kills.
A Fletcher kill and ace started the second set and at 4-3 the Wildcats rolled off 7 straight points, Conard heating up for 5 of her match-high 13 kills. WW South had difficulty countering West Chicago's deep front row.
"We have a multitude of hitters," West Chicago coach Kris Hasty said. "That's kind of the difference for us this year is we have a lot of options. We haven't always had that."
Conard had 9 digs, Konchar 7 kills and 9 digs and Emily Paschke 3 kills and 4 blocks for West Chicago in the championship. Amy Drabant had 4 kills and 4 assists and Phalen 4 kills and 4 digs for WW South, who had rallied to beat Glenbard North 23-25, 25-16, 15-12 in Saturday's semifinal.
"I like where we're at right now, but we also know that we have a ways to go," WW South coach Bill Schreier said. "It was good to get an early test against a highly-ranked team. I think we'll be able to give teams a run for their money this year."
Glenbard North, which finished the tournament 3-2 with its losses to West Chicago and WW South, came bame after the semifinal loss to defeat Addison Trail 25-15, 25-13 for third place. Stacie Knoll had 5 kills for the Panthers in that match.
"Overall I was very happy with the way the girls played," Glenbard North coach Jeremy Bradley said. "We won the matches that we were supposed to win and we were competitive in the other ones. For the first tournament of the season pretty good."