McMahon, Central beat Huskies again

The Naperville Central girls volleyball team played well without Megan McMahon.

Now that the senior setter is back from an appendectomy, the Redhawks are even better.

McMahon set Naperville Central to its second victory against Naperville North in three days. After sweeping Naperville North in the final of the Mizuno Cup on Saturday, the Redhawks turned back the visiting Huskies 25-16, 19-25, 25-19 in the DuPage Valley Conference on Tuesday night.

"I hate just sitting around doing nothing, so it's wonderful to be back," said McMahon, who credited the play of backup setter Kelsey Hoey and the rest of the Redhawks in her absence and complimented her teammates on quickly adjusting to her return. "They were already used to me from before, so it was kind of like getting back into an old rhythm."

Naperville Central coach Brie Isaacson is glad McMahon has returned to the court.

"It's huge for us because we're able to run a more balanced attack," Isaacson said. "We're still a predominantly outside team. Anybody who comes here is going to know it. Kelsey did a great job for us, but right now we're able to take those not-perfect passes and run something about out of them."

The statistics backed up Isaacson. Outside hitters Emily McGee and Rebecca Heath led the Redhawks (23-4, 8-3) in kills with 14 and 9, respectively, but right-side Megan Bray contributed 7 kills and middle Nicole Ramey added 5.

Such balance enabled the home team to overcome Colleen Ward's 20 kills for Naperville North (23-4, 9-2).

The Redhawks came out blasting like they didn't have a care in the world. An 8-1 run gave them a 12-5 lead en route to a convincing Game 1 win.

In Game 2 Ward unleashed 9 of her kills and Kai Schwartz came up with 3 blocks to enable the Huskies to extend the match.

Naperville Central scored the first 3 points of the third game on McGee kills and spent most of the game protecting a slim lead before opening a 23-16 advantage. The Redhawks tallied the final 2 points on a McGee kill and a Huskies pass into the net.

'Our execution was not good enough to win," Huskies coach Jennifer Urban said. "When you're playing a team of that strength, you have to be in system. We need to pass a lot better if we want to win big games."

Nrithya Sundararaman totaled 9 kills and Christine Wu came up with 13 digs for the Huskies.