Benet steals the show from Oswego
Benet’s girls volleyball team no doubt can appreciate a good underdog or Cinderella story as much as anyone.
Just not Tuesday. This was all business.
To no surprise, No. 1 seed Benet made short work of No. 13 Oswego at the Class 4A West Aurora sectional, advancing to its fifth straight sectional final with a 25-13, 25-16 win.
“We just want to keep the foot on the gas as hard as we can,” Benet coach Brad Baker said, “and keep being aggressive. We did not want to let them get any momentum.”
Benet (35-3) advances to play No. 9 seed Plainfield Central, a 25-22, 15-25, 29-27 winner over No. 7 Lockport, in Thursday’s 7 p.m. championship match.
Five of the other top six sectional seeds were upset in regionals last week, suggesting that Benet could breeze all the way to the supersectional. Tuesday’s match did nothing to dispel that notion.
Benet scored the first three points of the match, all on kills by Maddie Haggerty, and never trailed again after Oswego (19-18) scored the first point of the second set.
Any thought of an upset was snuffed out quite early.
“It’s been our focus, no matter who is on the other side of the court, just to play ball,” Baker said “Just continue to play hard throughout the entire match.”
Many are the opponents overwhelmed by Benet’s superior height. Oswego was no different.
The Redwings had their way at the net. Meghan Haggerty slammed home 11 kills, Jenna Jendryk 7, Maggie Haggerty 6 and Nora Young 4. Oswego rarely got a block up and didn’t get a block for a point until it was 22-15 in the second set. Benet had 17 kills in the first set to Oswego’s 3.
“Our height was definitely an advantage,” said Meghan Haggerty, a 6-foot-3 middle. “They couldn’t stop our slides, they couldn’t stop our middles or outsides. That’s definitely a plus.”
Benet setter Hannah Kaminsky had 30 assists and spread the wealth early on. Young had all 4 of her kills in the first set, a Young tip kill capping a 6-0 run on her serve for a 16-7 lead.
“Meghan’s a force and everybody knows that,” Baker said, “but we established some other kids a little early tonight, our outsides. That opened it up for the middles.”
Benet led the second set 3-2, then all but put things away with another 6-0 run highlighted by two Jendryk kills, a Meghan Haggerty kill and a rare Sheila Doyle dig that landed for a kill.
“With all the upsets last week, we’re just focusing on what we’re doing,” Meghan Haggerty said. “We had confidence that we could get this done.”
Oswego, playing its first sectional match since 2005 after knocking off Naperville Central and Waubonsie Valley last week, earned just 3 of its points in the first set. Oswego’s Brittany Maertzig had 5 kills.
“The girls weren’t surprised by Benet. They were well-prepared,” Oswego coach Erica Lorenz said. “We were just not finishing at our end. If it wasn’t one thing, it was the other. We were just not clicking together.”