Girls volleyball: Huntley serves up regional championship

Serving used to be a headache for Huntley early in the season.

The Red Raiders missed serves consistently during the first part of the season, which took them out of some matches. But Huntley players went from missing six or seven serves in a set to about one or two toward the end of the regular season.

That work paid dividends as the Red Raiders used strong serving to go on runs against McHenry and win the Class 4A Huntley regional, 25-16, 25-18, on Thursday night.

Huntley will play the seven-seed St. Charles East on Monday in the Grant sectional semifinals.

"At the beginning of the season we used to miss serves left and right," junior setter Maggie Duyos said. "Coming from a long way, it's so rewarding to see how far we've come as a team in just that aspect."

That first display of strong serving came after the two teams exchanged points for much of the first set. Lauren Bauer took over with a 8-6 lead and rattled off seven straight points for the Red Raiders to help her team take a 15-7 lead, exploiting a tough spot in the rotation for the Warriors.

Huntley ran out to a 23-11 lead before McHenry had some strong serving from Catarina Calabrese, but a strong kill up the middle on set point by Emily Willis put the first frame away.

"We have wonderful hitters, we have a well-balanced offense and when we're not serve receiving, we can't exploit that and we end up falling on just one person nonstop," McHenry coach Hilary Agnello said. "We got caught on a bad rotation."

The two teams exchanged points again for much of the second and the Warriors took their first lead of the match at 8-7, but the Red Raiders came back with another strong serving stretch from Willis, who rattled off three straight points to give her team a 16-10 lead and then Elizabeth Williams, who rattled off three straight to make it 20-12 a short time later.

McHenry fought back again but a hit out of bounds secured the regional for Huntley.

"I saw us make mental errors that took the wind out of our sails," Agnello said. "Errors that should not be made, I hate to say it, by varsity level athletes, so when you're working that hard for every single point and play and then there will be a mental error, that'll crush an energy and belief that you can win."

Thursday was the third matchup between the conference foes - Huntley won both matches 2-0. Red Raiders head coach Karen Naymola wanted to mix up what her offense did because of the familiarity between the two schools.

Naymola was proud of the way Duyos distributed the ball to all parts of the floor to make sure McHenry couldn't double block her hitters.

"She made some great decisions tonight," Naymola said. "Offensively, spreading out the offense. She had a great couple of tips that scored for us that were big momentum changers."

While the Red Raiders are proud of their regional win, Thursday only proved to them that they can take the next step and compete for a state championship. They know that at their best, they can compete against anyone in the state.

For the next couple of weeks, it's just about staying together and focusing on their ultimate goal.

"I think one of the most important things is staying together as a team," Duyos said. "If we start cracking, start falling apart, we will not make it down to state. But if we play together, we stay together as a team and we believe in each other, we'll make it down to state."