St. Charles North closes out Bartlett
Lindsey Hawkins’ team usually loves to talk.
The St. Charles North girls volleyball coach was more than a little miffed when her team failed to communicate in its match against Bartlett in the semifinal of the Class 4A Bartlett regional Tuesday night.
As quickly as the North Stars trailed 16-10, they managed to come back, led by 3 straight service points from Taylor Krage.
Krage kicked off a 14-2 run and North (23-11) never looked back winning 25-18, 25-11. The North Stars face Glenbard West, which defeated Conant 25-20, 25-16 in Thursday’s regional title match. North is looking for its second-straight regional crown and sixth in 7 years. Glenbard West has not won a regional title since 1985.
“We really came out slow and on our heels,” Hawkins said. We work on talking all the time. They love to talk and then they got out on the court and didn’t talk.”
Bartlett (13-23) led 16-10 by scoring quick points off aces. The Hawks scored 4 of their first 10 points off a pair of aces from Amy Hurban (5 digs) and aces from Alexia Diaz and Tori Burke (10 assists).
“The first game we came out ready to play,” Hawks’ coach Brandon Mueller said. “We were doing everything. We were up 16-11 and then our passing broke down. We just stopped playing.”
Krage (8 kills, 3 aces) had 2 kills and a block to bring North right back into Game 1 cutting Bartlett’s lead to 16-13. North scored 3 more points tying the game before the Hawks’ went up 1-16 off a Alexis Mason (6 kills) kill.
A Bartlett serving error tied the game and Sabrina Santucci (5 kills) gave Bartlett an 18-17 lead with a kill, but it was the last time Bartlett would lead in the match.
“They came out with the momentum and it was really hard to get it back,” Hawkins said. “We had to find some sort of fire.”
North scored 7 straight points to close out Game 1, fueled by 2 Krage aces. The North Stars finished the match with 9 aces, including 2 each from Jillian Stolzenburg and Lauren Madziarczyk. Kim Juriga added 5 kills.
“When we started off everyone was a little nervous,” Krage said. “(Then) we all took a deep breath. Everyone calmed down and started talking to each other.”
North jumped out early in Game 2 leading by 14-5 after scoring 5 straight points. Bartlett gave up 5 aces in the second game, 3 coming during a 9-2 run the North stars used to close out the match.