Batavia has something to celebrate with win over St. Charles East
Finding the right words to describe Batavia's 25-23, 25-21 victory over St. Charles East Tuesday wasn't easy for any of the Bulldogs, so leave it to Batavia coach Lori Trippi-Payne and senior outside Caitlin Piechota to make up a new one.
Two main reasons the Bulldogs were able to beat the defending Upstate Eight champions and take the early lead in this year's race were the way Batavia neutralized the Saints' size and hitting power with blocking and defense.
Or as Piechota explained...
"They (the Saints) are a great hitting team. We knew all their hitters were going to have big-ba-boom-bas as Trippi would say. But we adjusted well, we blocked well. I think that was the key."
Sophomore Kristen Koncelik led those blockers with 4 and sophomore libero Stephanie Kinane paced the defense with 12 digs. That was the combination Batavia needed to limit the damage from those powerful big-ba-boom-bas.
"The block was up and that helped (the defense) a lot," Kinane said. "Without the block we couldn't do anything. It made the defense a lot better.
"It is a big win for us. We came out there and gave it our all and it paid off."
Nowhere was Batavia's block more impressive than on back-to-back points in Game 2 when Koncelik and Blaire Theuerkauf blocked Saints star Meghan Niski (match-high 11 kills). That broke a 13-13 tie and the Bulldogs never trailed again.
"Our girls have been working hard every day in practice," Trippi-Payne said. "Our kids went in there and refused to let a ball hit the floor. We were going after everything and that's what you have to do. Tremendous team effort. These girls deserve this. They have worked so hard for this moment."
The win was the first for Batavia over St. Charles East since winning a regional semifinal in 1997. (The teams have only played once since.)
More significantly, it puts the Bulldogs (11-1, 2-0) in the driver's seat in the Upstate Eight Conference River Division with wins over both St. Charles schools in the past week. A key match looms with Geneva on Oct. 5.
There's not much time for the Saints, North Stars or anybody with a conference loss to play catch-up with only six conference games that decide the champion.
"We knew they are an amazing team," Piechota said. "We knew it was probably going to be the hardest match out of our season, our conference so we prepared really, really hard. We just played out of our minds. We're really happy with what happened."
St. Charles East (12-5, 1-1) hurt itself in Game 1 with 3 hitting errors, 2 net violations, a couple service-returns that went over the net and led to easy Batavia kills and - perhaps most costly - 5 serving errors.
The fifth and final service error came on game point after Trippi-Payne called timeout with Batavia clinging to a 24-23 lead. The Bulldogs led by at as much as five in Game 1, the latest at 19-14.
The Saints chipped away, closing within 22-21 on a slide kill from Allison Manley followed by a Nicole Lambert kill, but never caught up.
"St. Charles East put a lot of balls down," Trippi-Payne said. "We are not used to giving up that many kills, but we hung in there."
Saints coach Jennie Kull changed her rotation to start Game 2 and caught the Bulldogs by surprise. The teams traded the lead 5 times and were tied 8 times in reaching a 13-13 score.
Then came the consecutive blocks by Koncelik and Theuerkauf, starting a 4-0 run thanks to two more Saints hitting errors.
Batavia built its biggest lead at 23-17 on a Mary Nilles kill. The Saints fought off 3 match points thanks to their own strong play in the middle - an Olivia Desormey block, Lambert kill and Lambert block - before Trippi-Payne called timeout and set up a play for Nilles who put away Bryant's set.
That started a mob of happy Bulldogs on the court. They had been counting the days until their chance to play the Saints.
"We've been wanting to play East forever," Piechota said. "This has been on our minds, the day we play East, the countdown for East. We knew it was going to be hard. We prepared for them a lot."
Kull said her team had the best practice of its season Monday as they looked to rebound from a 2-3 record last weekend at the Prairie Ridge Invitational.
That good practice didn't pay off in a match the Saints made more than their usual share of mistakes and also had some communication and timing problems that allowed the Bulldogs several easy points.
"We just didn't play well, bottom line," Kull said. "I have to hand it to Batavia, they played very well. They were ready to play, they were excited about it. This was an opportunity for them in the conference. I have to hand to them and to Trippi, she got them ready. They deserved the win."