Lakes chews up Johnsburg

Gum stuck to Ridgewood’s volleyball court caused a brief delay before the start of the second set of Tuesday’s Class 3A sectional semifinal between Lakes and Johnsburg.

School staff eventually scraped up the sticky mess.

“At first, I thought it was a bug,” Lakes coach Molly May said.

Alex Silvola did one better than the Ridgewood crew.

The Lakes junior scraped the floor to miraculously keep a volleyball alive.

Sweet.

“It was an adrenaline rush,” Silvola said of her pancake dig. “I was just crawling out of the way, hoping that somebody would get (the ball) up.”

Shannon Grant did just that for her teammate, and Kim Olson hit the ball over the net for Lakes. When the long rally ended with Johnsburg hitting the ball long, the Eagles had won the point to go up 16-14 and were on their way to winning the match.

Lakes’ 26-24, 25-17 victory means the Eagles (27-11) get to chew on this: a sectional-final match against Carmel Catholic (26-13) at 7 p.m. Thursday back in Norridge.

The Eagles won’t be fazed by the Corsairs, nor any potential debris on the court.

“We’ve played with gum on the floor,” Silvola said.

Stephanie Reed provided a spark on the floor for Lakes in the opening set with her serving. The Eagles had just pulled within 9-8 when the 5-foot-3 junior came in to serve. Reed proceeded to reel off 4 straight aces, as Johnsburg (23-15) struggled with its serve-receive.

Reed later delivered her fifth ace as part of a 9-0 run that hiked the Eagles’ lead to 17-9. She served for 13 points in the match, as did Sarah Horner (2 aces).

“We knew that we had to serve at (Johnsburg) aggressively,” May said. “They’re a team that hustles. They were really scrappy, picking up a lot of our balls. I was impressed with their play.”

Johnsburg wiped out its large deficit in the opening set, led by hard-hitting Stephanie Cherwin, and grabbed a 24-22 lead.

But Horner pushed an attack that landed untouched for one of her 5 kills, and a missed connection on an attempted pass by Johnsburg ended the set.

In the second set, a block by Olson and one of Emily Aigner’s team-high 10 kills followed Silvola’s pancake dig.

“That’s Alex’s trademark,” May said. “She does it all the time. ... It’s just awesome. I don’t know how she does it. It’s so hard to do.”

An ace by Grant padded Lakes’ lead to 21-14. The Eagles ended the match with an ace by Rachel Sieracke (18 assists, 2 block kills) and a kill by Aigner.

“That second game was Lakes volleyball,” May said. “The first game, we’ll take the win, but we weren’t in our system. We weren’t meshing.”