Saints putting experience to good use
St. Charles East's boys volleyball team won its Upstate Eight Conference opener Tuesday night, the first of many the Saints hope to get this spring.
With 10 returnees back led by three-year starter Jeff Jones, St. Charles East wants to move up the ladder into at least the top three in conference, after years of lagging behind. The Saints got off to a good start on their goal with a 25-17, 25-15 victory over visiting Elgin.
"We feel like we can compete," Saints senior Eric Coleman said. "Everyone is having a rebuilding year except for us. We're maybe the top dog other than Neuqua. We are trying to live up to that top dog status. We are trying to show the Upstate Eight we are a legitimate team."
St. Charles East (5-2, 1-0) finished 10th out of 24 teams at last weekend's Marist Invitational, losing to Lincoln-Way Central and Elk Grove.
The Saints never trailed against Elgin (0-6, 0-1).
"We'd like to finish in top three (in conference), just try to improve from last year and go farther in the playoffs," Jones said. "Originally I just wanted to win a regional game, but the way we've started the season I feel we can be much better than we are, I think we can even go farther, maybe get to a sectional."
The Saints scored the first three points and led throughout Game 1 until the Maroons forged the only tie, 16-16 on a Saints hitting error. An Elgin service error put the Saints back on top and started a 9-1 surge to finish Game 1. Taylor Heavington proved the final two points with a kill and block.
"The kids on our team don't have that experience or leadership," Elgin coach Keith Foster said. "We are kind of lacking that off-season play where they get on the court and it's 16-16 and they aren't sure how to handle themselves. But they played tough."
Serving cost Elgin in the second game. The Maroons misfired on 3 of their first 4, and they eventually lost match point on another service error.
St. Charles East missed 9 serves of its own in the match but offset that with 8 aces from 6 different players.
"They had some pretty good servers on their team," Foster said. "When they got their serves over they were hard for us to handle. Our serve-receive needs to get a little more consistent."
Coleman came alive in Game 2 with 7 kills to tie Jack Rasmussen for game honors with 10. Baxter Reed added 11 digs and 10 assists. Jones finished with 13 assists and 4 kills.
"The difference with this team as opposed to last year is they have experience and they are confident if they are down a couple points and go on a rotation when they lose 4 of 6 points, they are OK," Saints coach Stephanie Gooden said.
"The look of worry and frustration doesn't come across their faces like last year. There has been times we could have folded and they didn't."
Coleman provided one of the Saints' best stretches in Game 2 with 3 kills in a 4-point span to widen their lead to 17-9.
"He has the match experience, he has the match knowledge. He's one of our guys you can tell did some off-season work because he flows better during the match," said Gooden, who also praised the play of senior captain Jones, a two-time all-conference player.
"He is a big-time leader," Gooden said. "He is a stand-up kid, the guys respect him. He takes care of business off the court and on the court."
Zayya Oshana and Carlton Kellenberger both had 4 kills for Elgin.