Girls volleyball: Closset, Naperville Central get last word vs. Metea Valley

Naperville Central girls volleyball player Kayla Closset punctuating a conference win with a thunderous kill was something to see - especially since Closset was the focus of her opponent's attention.

How then did the Redhawks hide something everyone sees coming?

"We set Kayla a ton of volleyballs, so people know in those situations we're going to go to her," Redhawks coach Brie Isaacson said. "So what we do in those situations is change our offense a bit and move her around so it's not so predictable. On a good pass we were able to bring her around to the inside, and fortunately for us that scored."

The kill, Closset's 10th, halted a rally from Metea Valley and ended the match in favor of Naperville Central 25-17, 25-22 Tuesday night in Naperville.

Dishing out the assist was senior setter Grace Butler, who tallied 24 of them on the evening and said that the special play was ready to go if her defense got a free ball.

Butler steadily guided Naperville Central's offense to an efficient and versatile performance. Outside hitter Maddie Bylak had a team-high 11 kills, while right-side Kaitlin Skowronski chipped in 5.

"I try to give my hitters the best opportunities to get an attack," Butler said. "I try to spread them out and make the defense question where I'm going to go."

The strategy was nearly flawless in the first set as Naperville Central raced out to a 6-1 lead, thanks in part to two kills and an ace from Closset.

After cutting the deficit to 9-6, the Mustangs never got any closer in their 25-17 loss.

The second set, though, was a different story. Metea Valley hung tough early and then jumped ahead for a 9-8 lead that it extended to 12-10 after back-to-back-to-back kills from outside hitter Cora Ondrus.

"All the sudden we made the adjustments we had to defensively," Mustangs coach Dave MacDonald said. " I told the girls, 'You adjusted better than any team I've ever had.' We were switching people around and we fought. We just made too many errors on our side."

After their timeout the Redhawks went on a 7-1 run aided by a serving, setting and two hitting errors from the Mustangs.

"After the first set we talked about how we knew the second set wasn't going to be like this," Isaacson said. "Metea Valley is a good team. They were touching so many balls defensively. We were making so many errors, so when I took that timeout (at 12-10), it was just to settle us down and go back to the basics that make us successful."

Naperville Central took the lead to 22-15 before Metea Valley mounted a comeback, but it was too little, too late and Closset finished things off with the kill.

The match pushed the Redhawks to 17-2 and set back the Mustangs to 11-9 as DuPage Valley Conference play starts to ramp up.