Girls volleyball: Warren’s furious finish beats Stevenson, gives Blue Devils NSC lead
With both teams sporting identical records heading into this North Suburban Conference girls volleyball showdown, something had to give when host Stevenson met Warren Wednesday night in Lincolnshire.
The Patriots (15-11, 4-1) pulled out a 25-22 victory in set one, but the Blue Devils (16-10, 5-0) stormed back with a convincing 25-14 victory in the second set. And while Stevenson held a 23-21 lead in the third set, Warren scored the final four points on its way to a narrow 25-23 victory to win the match and take sole possession of first place in the NSC.
Trailing 23-21, a violation on the Patriots cut the lead to 23-22. A service point by Warren senior Lauren Schilz (11 kills, 9 digs, 4 aces) on a kill by Alyse Murphy-Spiteri deadlocked the score at 23-23. Then a dink shot by Lyla Christensen (25 assists) and an ace by Schilz closed out the match for the exciting 25-23 comeback win.
"I think in the first set they were playing timid and we made a lot of mistakes that we usually don't make just communication-wise with each other so that was very unlike us," said Warren coach Yun Chen, whose team bounced back from a three-set loss to Carmel Catholic on Tuesday. "They played more relaxed and started believing in each other. Stevenson is a great team and I know they were missing one of their players and it was a really good match for both teams."
The Patriots got a big match from University of Illinois-bound Ava Wysocki with 12 kills while Warren's Allison Jiang was also aggressive at the net with 7 kills and some outstanding blocks. The Pats also got 6 kills and 3 aces from Lilly Salej while teammate Ryler Bondad had 20 assists and 3 aces.
"I feel like we started picking up on our serving and really putting the pressure on them in the second and third set, and we put more balls down," said Schilz. "In practice we always practice finishing even when it's close to the end. And this is always a big game against Stevenson. We always have a good game against them, and we really wanted to win for this conference."
Stevenson's Lilly Zhou had 11 digs while teammates Bethany Payawal and Kierra Flynn had 8 digs each. Maya Patryarcha and Audri Linnane had 3 kills apiece for the Patriots, but key outside hitter Abby Inman missed the match due to illness. Taylor Coombes had 5 kills for the Blue Devils.
"They kind of flipped the script there where we started struggling in the back row and we were doing different things in the lineup just because of lack of personnel that we had tonight," said Stevenson coach Tim Crow.
"The kids were making great efforts and making great plays, they were all into it. We just weren't able to execute, and Warren played great final points there to finish off the set so credit to them. They did a really good job and they've got a great team."