St. Francis tunes out Rosary

Loud and raucous, Rosary's gym rocked on Tuesday night before and during the host Royals' third attempt at beating St. Francis.

But the Spartans were setting their own tone on the court in this Class 3A sectional semifinal, and it wasn't very inviting for the hosts. St. Francis completed the season sweep 25-17, 25-10 to advance to Thursday's title match with Joliet Catholic.

“We know them really well,” St. Francis senior Meg Vonderhaar said. “We had a good scouting report. We played really well and exploited their weaknesses.”

Coming from a regional title performance described as “flat” by coach Peg Kopec, St. Francis (31-7) never wavered for an appreciable amount of time. From a 2-2 tie the Spartans never trailed in the first set. An early 3-1 Rosary lead in the second set vanished under a Spartans hitting onslaught.

“When it gets closer and closer to state, we know we have to keep playing better if we want to stay in the tournament,” Vonderhaar said. “That really motivated us.”

Once the Spartans had leads in each set, Rosary (26-12) was unable to force a tie. The second game was already getting away from the Royals when Vonderhaar nailed three straight aces to give her team a 15-5 lead.

“We came out hard and had a really good first sectional game and that's good,” St. Francis setter Kelly Reinke said.

Vonderhaar led the Spartans with 8 kills, including the smash that ended the match. But the attack was very balanced. Grace Chumey had 6 kills, Lauren Duncan 5 kills and Daiva Wise had 4 kills.

“Our defense was really good tonight,” Vonderhaar said. “When they have more balls up, we have better sets and then we get better hits.”

Theresa Katarzynski led the Spartans with 9 digs while Gina Madonia added 8 digs and that helped Reinke, who had 22 assists.

“Everyone was playing really scrappy tonight,” Reinke said. “We got a lot of balls up.”

Having gotten the first game, the Spartans pushed to finish the match in two games, which the achieved to set their 6 p.m. Thursday matchup for the sectional title.

“Once we get the momentum, it's easy to keep it on our side,” Reinke said.

Rosary struggled to gain any traction in the match.

“(St. Francis) played really well,” Rosary coach Lisa Kasper said. “We did not have a solid effort by everybody who stepped out on the court tonight.”

Kasper said she felt St. Francis might have been vulnerable when Vonderhaar moved into the back row, though even there the Spartans were strong.

“We had too many mistakes on our side,” Kasper said. “We couldn't any kind of attack going. We were too frantic.”

Kasper said her team had a solid season in advancing to the sectional semifinal.

“Most of the season, we were playing four sophomores and a couple of juniors,” she said. “There's a lot to look forward to next year.”