Girls volleyball: 'Happy nervous' Downers Grove North beats Glenbard East
Gwen Wolkow helped Downers Grove North reach the Class 4A championship game for the first time last season.
The 6-foot sophomore outside hitter is one of the few returning players from that team, so Tuesday's Downers Grove North regional semifinal was the first playoff experience for most of her teammates.
Wolkow showed the newcomers the way, recording a match-high 10 kills and 4 aces to lead the third-seeded Trojans to a 25-19, 25-16 victory over 14th seed Glenbard East.
Downers North (20-16) will play No. 6 seed Glenbard West, which beat No. 11 Bartlett 25-18, 27-25, in Thursday's final.
"I at least was confident," Wolkow said. "I know pretty much everyone was confident.
"We were probably happy nervous. This is our first regional game and it's just nice to be back out there. I want to go really far."
Glenbard East (14-22) held 3-point leads early in each set. The Rams were up 7-4 in the opener until junior Jacki Lucas and Wolkow landed back-to-back kills.
But the Trojans didn't take the lead for good until Isabella Samsa landed kills to tie the game at 11 and the Rams followed by making two errors. Wolkow had 8 of her kills in the first set as Downers North gradually pulled away.
"No. 14 (Wolkow), whatever her name is, she's a good player," Glenbard East coach Marci Maier said. "We hung with them defensively for quite a while and we needed to execute a little bit better in serve receive.
"They served tough and we were out of system a little too much and we needed to get some more swings."
Instead, it was the Trojans who got more swings, and not just from Wolkow. Junior outside Jacki Lucas spiked 6 kills, while Samsa, fellow middle Morgan Wendt and setter Grace Malone all added 3 kills.
Lucas sandwiched two of her kills around a Samsa smash to give Downers North a 10-8 lead after the Rams began the second set with a 5-2 run.
"(Lucas) played awesome," said Wolkow, who ended the match with consecutive aces. "She did great and she hit her spots on the court.
"She has a good swing and she's able to get balls up in the back row."
Lucas was one of the Trojans who were making their postseason debuts.
"I was trying to push as hard as I could because I know we all really wanted this win," Lucas said. "So I feel I was trying to bring everyone up.
"We have a great team and we're always super supportive of each other. We kind of bring each other up and we force each other to play hard. I think it kind of came together."
Junior Kendall Crackel and freshman Madison Manning paced Glenbard East with 4 kills apiece.
"We were young and we've improved a ton since the beginning of the season, just not enough to be a 14 seed upsetting a 3," Maier said. "We would have loved to have seen it. We played them tough, it just wasn't enough today."