Girls volleyball: LaSalle-Peru denies Kaneland outright Interstate Eight title

Just two points away from knocking off 30-3 LaSalle-Peru and winning the outright Interstate Eight championship Thursday night, Kaneland instead was reminded just how fast momentum can switch sides in a volleyball match.

Up 23-20 in the deciding third set, nothing went right for Kaneland over the final five points - five straight for the Lady Cavaliers for a wild 22-25, 25-23, 25-23 victory in a loud and nearly packed Kaneland gymnasium.

It's nothing Kaneland senior Grace Franz hasn't seen before, but she could have done without it Thursday.

"Volleyball can change in a second. It's one of the sports that can change like that," Franz said, snapping her fingers. "It happens. But we're ready for regionals."

Kaneland (27-8, 12-2), despite having its 11-game winning streak snapped, certainly looked ready while battling LaSalle-Peru (31-3, 12-2).

"Overall we're all very happy with how our conference went," said Franz who put down a team-high 13 kills. "We knew LaSalle-Peru was going to be a hard game. We gave them our best shot."

All three sets were tight throughout. Down 8-5 in the first, Kaneland went on an 11-1 run to take control and then held off L-P's late run that included Central Michigan recruit Kamryn Olson's consecutive kills on the first two set points.

The Knights ended the set when Franz swung hard from the back row on a set by Meghan O'Sullivan for a kill.

Kaneland had chances in both of the next two sets to close out the match up 19-16 in the second and 23-20 in the third. Both times LaSalle-Peru responded to win a much different match than the teams' first meeting, a 25-11, 25-18 L-P win.

"We knew they were a better team than that," Lady Cavaliers coach Mark Haberkorn said. "Tonight was a postseason intensity match start to finish. Both teams played very hard. Both teams showed a lot of composure. Both teams just played to a high level."

There were plenty of long rallies with standout plays on both sides of the net. Sammie Abruzzo made one such play in the second set, coming out of nowhere for a diving dig to keep a point going that O'Sullivan's blast won for the Knights.

Kaneland libero Grace Vranicar also hustled to handle rockets coming at her from hitters like Olson (10 kills), Arika Richardson (7 kills), Kenzie DeFosse and Anna Quesse while the Lady Cavaliers won two points by sprinting back past the end line and somehow lunging to bump the ball just over the net for winners.

"High level volleyball tonight, wasn't it?" Kaneland coach Cyndi Violett said. "That was a tough loss."

Down 17-13 in the third set, Kaneland rallied starting on Maddie Buckley's kill, then two aces by Franz. Olivia Burtell slammed down a rare free ball from L-P for a 20-19 lead which grew to 23-20 when O'Sullivan set Burtell in the middle.

Olson's kill and ace brought L-P within 23-22, and Quesse's block took the Lady Cavaliers to match point which ended somewhat anticlimactically when the Knights' serve-receive broke down.

"We didn't get the passes up," Violett said of the final five points. "We were playing more on the defense than the offense. And we were hitting into the block a lot. LaSalle is a good team, they deserve it."