St. Charles E. stays cool, tops St. Charles N.

With emotions on both sides ratcheted up a notch or three Tuesday in St. Charles, it was the team that kept their feelings in check that came out on top.

St. Charles East trailed its rival St. Charles North 23-21 in Game 1 and 22-21 in Game 2, yet each time the Saints kept their composure down the stretch. They scored the final four points of the first game and four of the final five in the second for a 25-23, 25-22 victory in front of a good-sized crowd at St. Charles East.

“This is one of our biggest games of the year,” said Saints senior Billy Russell. “The biggest thing to do was keep our nerves under control and I think we did that pretty well. We lapsed a couple times but in the end we did pretty well.”

The win keeps St. Charles East (8-16, 3-1) in the running for an Upstate Eight Conference River Division championship along with Geneva. Defending champion St. Charles North fell to 10-9, 2-2.

“The team has come really far mentally,” Saints coach Kate McCullagh said. “I think toward the beginning of the season being so young the tight games we didn’t quite have it. North is a great team and this showed true character and they stepped up and that’s the most exciting thing to see. They didn’t get nervous and they kept their emotions in check and just played.”

The Saints are in the hunt for a conference title with a young team. Russell is their only senior and has delivered both on the court — 12 kills, 2 blocks and 9 assists Tuesday — and off it.

“He’s a great captain,” McCullagh said. “He’s helped the team come this far not only skill wise but practice he keeps them focused and he’s just a great leader. He’s very coachable. He’ll run anything you ask him to run. He’s the kid who would run though a brick wall if you ask him to.”

While Russell wound up with the match-high for kills, it was Brandon Hoerner who got the North Stars off to a good start with kills on the first two points of the night.

The North Stars took a 6-3 lead on a Saints hitting error, and that turned out to be the largest margin for either team in Game 2. The Saints caught the North Stars at 6-6, then the teams battled through 17 ties and 8 lead changes in an extremely tight first game.

McCullagh took time after a Hoerner block put the North Stars ahead 23-21. Sophomore Luke Spicer’s kill got the serve back to the Saints, and with Tom DeBruyne serving the Saints scored the next three points on a Russell block and two North Stars errors.

“I think it’s a combination of nerves and putting too much pressure on themselves,” North Stars coach Todd Weimer said of his team’s struggles. “We didn’t play very well on top of that. We had a ton of balls we thought were out and let go and they were in.”

In contrast to the back-and-forth opener, Game 2 saw the Saints take a commanding 12-4 lead before the North Stars went on an 18-9 surge to take a late lead.

Once again St. Charles East finished strong. Mark Healy, along with Spicer one of five sophomores on the Saints, served the final 3 points including a short floater serve on match point the North Stars could not handle.

Hoerner led the North Stars in defeat with 6 kills, 3 blocks, 5 digs and 2 aces. Other contributors included: Pat Misiewicz (13 assists, 2 blocks, 1 ace, 3 digs); Ryan Staudacher (2 kills, 1 block); Ryan Dal Degan (4 digs, 2 aces); Zach Ziesmer (2 kills, 4 digs, 3 blocks); Kevin Beach (3 kills, 5 digs) and Dan Wheeler (1 ace, 4 digs).

“We were 5-0 last year (in the UEC River), conference champs, we thought we could build off last year and could repeat,” Weimer said. “We’re disappointed. As a coach you are playing St. Charles East, one of our goals for every guy is to beat East. But you have to approach the game as you would any other game. You don’t need to do different things. The whole psychology of it, I think that was a big part of that (loss).”

In addition to Russell’s all-around game, Spicer had 7 kills, Tom Dieter 2 blocks, DeBruyne 10 assists and Sam Pulcanio 9 digs for the Saints.

“It’s really a team effort,” Russell said. “When the passing is good and the setting is good it all comes together and that’s what happens. They (Russell’s teammates) are young guys but they play club in the off-season. So we are all pretty experienced so we just have to come together as a team. I think we are progressing pretty well as the season goes on.”