No stopping WW South

The Wheaton Warrenville South girls volleyball team played like it was not going to be denied.

The powerful Tigers defended their home court with a strong defensive effort, turning back Naperville North 25-22, 25-19 in a DuPage Valley Conference showdown for first place Tuesday night before a large and loud crowd in Wheaton.

With the victory WW South (17-1, 7-0) avenged a three-game loss to Naperville North (16-2, 6-1) at the DuPage Area Tournament on Sept. 15.

"From the first time we played them they played a much better match," Huskies coach Jennifer Urban said. "The first time we played them we scored a lot on their errors, and tonight I think they played a lot better defense and they earned their points."

WW South senior outside hitter Becca Zlabis said the home fans raised her team's intensity.

"I think the crowd was great and I really think that that picked us up," said Zlabis, who blasted 13 kills to go along with 2 blocks and 2 aces. "We were just ready to beat them. We didn't want them to beat us again so we played our hearts out."

Naperville North's Colleen Ward got her kills with 12, but the Tigers made it difficult for the other Huskies to put down balls with consistency. Katie Kane, Monika Stanciauskas and Zlabis helped the home team form a wall at the net.

"They did a great job blocking," Urban said. "We didn't just set Colleen, but they put up a great block. They scored a lot of points off their block."

The first game saw 11 ties, the last one at 22. The Tigers pulled out the opener by scoring the next 3 points when Mollie Kolosky skied to bury an overpass, Annie Luhrsen lined a wicked kill and Kaitlyn Graham served an ace.

Naperville North jumped ahead 13-7 in Game 2, but WW South answered with a big run. The Tigers scored 13 of the next 16 points -- triggered by back-to-back blocks by Dayana Rodriguez and Luhrsen before Zlabis smacked 3 kills -- to pull ahead 20-16.

Shortly thereafter, a Zlabis kill and two straight errors by the Huskies gave WW South the match.

"I thought defensively we did a great job tonight and I thought we did a pretty good job from the service line," Tigers coach Bill Schreier said. "I thought we were pretty aggressive and we were able to get them out of system enough where (Ward) wasn't as comfortable as she could be."

Megan Hecker paced the Tigers in digs with 7.