Girls volleyball: Depth helps Geneva knock off Batavia
Geneva celebrated junior setter Anna Loberg's 1,000th career assist with balloons and high-fives following Tuesday's 25-11, 25-15 win over rival Batavia.
Loberg reached the milestone last week against St. Charles East. With the rest of this season plus next year to go, she got to work on her next 1,000 with 15 assists Tuesday.
"All the support is really nice from everyone," Loberg said.
Missing one of her favorite targets, Cassidy Brown (sick), Loberg got some different teammates involved including senior Delainey Miltner and junior Leah Davine.
Miltner moved into the starting lineup at right side with Mary Cate McCormick shifting to outside. Davine continued to rotate in the middle.
"We see a lot of positives in practice so we want to give those kids opportunities and tonight we were able to get her (Davine) in and she did a nice job blocking for us and had some good swings," Geneva coach Annie Seitelman said. "Delainey we asked to step up. They did a really nice job."
Batavia (8-16, 2-2) had a chance to tie Geneva (13-5, 4-0) for the DuKane Conference lead with a win but was its own worst enemy early. The Bulldogs hit long on the first three points of the match to fall behind 3-0, and Geneva didn't have to really earn a point until Devynn Day's blast made it 11-4.
The Bulldogs hit 9 balls out and missed a pair of serves in the opening set without any aces.
"I don't know what else to say except we have to play with some common sense," Batavia coach Lori Trippi-Payne said. "There's certain things we wanted to do but when the play isn't there you have to take what they give you. We didn't do that."
Loberg closed out the first set with a kill, and after Batavia took a couple brief leads early in the second set, she put the Vikings ahead to stay at 7-6 teaming up with Isabella Chiefari for a block.
Loberg also looked for openings for tips a few times in the second set, catching Batavia off-guard twice in a 3-point stretch that made it 17-9.
A kill by Kyra Taylor pulled Batavia within 20-15 before the Vikings scored the final five points, a run started with Day's smash and ended on another Loberg assist to Day.
Day (7 kills), Loberg (4 kills, 10 digs, 3 blocks), Davine (3 blocks), McCormick (10 digs, 3 blocks), Miltner (3 kills) and Grace Hinchman (11 digs) helped the Vikings maintain their DuKane lead.
"We're excited but just have to know it doesn't mean anything, the season isn't over," Loberg said. "We have to keep going up and keep pushing through.
"Delainey stepped up and came in ready to play so that helped a lot. We just had a lot of energy and stayed consistent through the whole match."
Batavia had its regular lineup Tuesday for just the fifth time in 24 matches. Grace Wecker was busy with 7 digs while Lauren Haefer put away 5 kills and Taylor had 3.
"It's unfortunate," Trippi-Payne said. "It's a rivalry match and we didn't show up. They were down a starter, we had an opportunity, we just weren't able to play our game. We need to take care of our side of the net. We wanted to at least give them a game."