Huntley gets the nerves out vs. Dundee-Crown

Huntley senior Eli Manning said she and her teammates had to overcome the postseason butterflies.

“Playing in regionals is nerve wracking,” said Manning, a setter who nonetheless kept her cool while notching 20 assists in a 25-11, 25-12 win over the host Chargers at the Class 4A Dundee-Crown girls volleyball regional Tuesday.

“I think we got it all the nerves out of us today.”

The victory advanced top-seed Huntley (29-7) to Thursday’s regional title match against No. 2 Barrington (28-7), which dispatched No. 3 Jacobs (24-12) in two games.

If there was a point when Huntley’s nerves showed at all, it was when D-C scored a side out on a kill by D-C junior Jill Hostetler and went on to score 3 more consecutive points, aided by a pair of Huntley hitting errors.

That surge merely trimmed the D-C deficit to 15-7 in Game 2, however, the Red Raiders say they can’t afford the same mistakes against the Fillies in the final.

“Our nerves showed, and we showed that we can break down on certain points in the game,” Huntley libero Amy Dion said. “We’re going to work on that (today) and hopefully come out Thursday like it’s playoff time. We have to start playing.”

The Red Raiders also had some shaky moments on serve receive. However, their overall talent covered any blemishes. Senior hitter Sam Boesch accounted for 26 percent of Huntley’s scoring with 13 kills. She nailed one Dundee-Crown defender directly in the face with an unstoppable spike to the back row.

“Overall, we played pretty well,” Boesch said. “We just need to clean up a few things like the serve receive. We need to get better because we’re eventually going to be playing better competition and we’re not going to be able to make those mistakes.”

Huntley jumped to an 8-1 lead in the opening game on 5 service points from Aryanna Burgos. The Red Raiders were helped by the inconsistent Chargers (7-29), who at one point in Game 1 committed 5 straight unforced hitting errors.

“We were not competitive,” Dundee-Crown coach Tracy Williams said. “We did not compete. I was really happy going into this because we’ve been so much more competitive and we’ve been getting better and better.”