Girls volleyball: Coyne, WW South slip past Geneva

Lauren Coyne can, without question, skyrocket into the air and power down a kill. That much is visibly obvious a few volleys into a set.

The booming sound when the 6-foot-3 Wheaton Warrenville South outside hitter's left hand smacks the ball into the opposing court generally tells the moral of the story enough times for the message to get across.

Her innate ability to hit out of the back row, however, has quietly emerged as a weapon for the Tigers.

"There's never been a question of her ability to hit it out of the front row. I mean, she's third-year starting," Tigers coach Bill Schreier said following their 25-20, 21-25, 25-19 victory over Geneva on Tuesday. "But, when you're able to go ahead and deliver that from the 10-foot line, I'd say that's a bigger difference maker."

"What it does for our hitters, is it frees up a blocker," Schreier continued. "So, now instead of having the front row hands and two hitters, you've got a back row hitter that you have to pay attention to. That's going to hold [the opposition's] blocking scheme a little bit and then we can go ahead and, hopefully, take advantage of some things."

Coyne slammed down 14 kills, including the set-clinching point of the third match, to dampen a comeback-driven Geneva squad. Coyne was one of several standouts for the Tigers, including senior outside hitter Madison Mlady (seven kills), senior setter Rebecca Bellows (four kills) and junior Cate Cassin (two aces).

"I don't even think [Coyne] hit out of the back row in club. That was more of a thing that we've been working on this summer once high school started to get her as an option every single rotation," Schreier said. "So, it's not just 'Oh, she's tall', you've got three rotations in the front row, side out, and get her into the back row.' I think that's really a dimension that she's really added in her game."

"Blocking is coming along," Schreier continued. "I think that that is something by midpoint of the season, you're going to see a huge difference in what she's going to be able to do the opponent at the net."

"Me and my setter [Bellows], we knew we wanted to run faster tempo in any hitting situation," Coyne said. "So, we kind of messed around with it in the beginning of the season and at practice. Out of [the] middle-back, you can run a [quick attack following a set attempt]. That's a really fast ball, and we kind of wanted to do the same thing out of right-back because that's where I played defense and that's where I'm more comfortable hitting out of. ... It paid off, all the extra work on it."

The Tigers (6-4, 1-0) traded the first two sets with victories. The third set, the Tigers continued to ride the healthy attack trio of Coyne, Mlady and Bellows to maintain a consistent three or four-point advantage throughout the match.

The Tigers built a 20-14 lead that was closed to by three to 20-17 after a Fiona Turnbull kill, Tigers attack error and an ace by libero Sophia Broderick. WWS ultimately reignited with a Mlady and Bellows kill, followed by a couple of blocks, and Coyne's final kill to clinch it at 25-19.

Geneva (6-3, 0-1) was paced by Charlotte Potvin and Fiona Turnbull's five kills. Grace Waters had three kills.

"Grace came off the bench today and she did a really nice job for us," Vikings coach Lauren Kosecki said. "She had some crucial swings at the right time and we're still working. If we can get our middles the ball, we can do some good things. We've just got to service-receive and get our middles the ball and when we do, we do good things."