St. Edward gets shot at Harvard
Easy became tough, but the St. Edward girls volleyball team weathered the storm Thursday night, and now the Green Wave have a shot at their ninth regional title in the last 10 years.
After breezing to a 25-13 win in Game 1, third-seeded St. Edward was pushed to the limit in Game 2 before finally shaking off pesky second seed Aurora Christian 25-20 in Game 2.
The Class 2A St. Edward regional semifinal win puts the Green Wave (19-16) against top-seeded Harvard (25-8) in Saturday's 5 p.m. championship match. Harvard defeated Genoa-Kingston 25-11, 25-17 in Thursday's other semifinal.
"We definitely had the same game plan going into Game 2," said St. Edward senior Kristen Haggenjos, who finished the match with 7 kills and 6 digs. "But we lacked some mental toughness. We're working on that."
The Green Wave didn't lack much of anything in Game 1. They opened up a 9-3 lead on a 4-0 run that saw Haggenjos serve 2 aces and never looked back.
"We struggled defensively in the first game," said Aurora Christian coach Nicole Andersen, whose team finished 19-13.
With the 6-point lead, St. Edward never let the Eagles get back into the game and closed it out on a Katie Yohn ace. The senior standout's powerful spike intimidated the Eagles all night. She had a match-high 11 kills to go with 6 digs and 10 assists.
Aurora Christian didn't' go quietly into the night though. The Eagles bounced back and were locked in a seesaw battle with the Wave in Game 2. But with the score tied at 17, St. Edward started putting some distance between itself and AC as three Eagle hitting errors and another Yohn ace made it 21-17. The Eagles fought back to 21-20 but a Haggenjos kill gave the Wave the serve back and, with a 22-20 lead, freshman Katie Ayello served out the match. A net violation, a strong block from Molly Kelly (3 blocks) and another Aurora Christian hitting error closed out the 38-minute match.
"I don't know that they let down," said St. Edward coach Jaime Walton of her squad in Game 2. "Aurora Christian started to run their middles a little more and they started tipping a little more."
Said Haggenjos: "We didn't know much about (Aurora Christian) but they came out and played a good game."
Walton knows Saturday's match will be a step up in competition but nothing her battle-tested team isn't used to.
"I know some of their best players from club," Walton said. "They won't throw anything at us we haven't seen. We'll have to block the outside and we've beaten some strong teams when we've been able to do that."
Junior Mallory Gilkey led Aurora Christian with 5 blocks.
"You have to give a lot of credit to (St. Edward)," Andersen said. "They let up a little but they came back and this is a real tough place to play."