Rosary avenges loss to Wheaton Academy

Getting back to .500 never felt better.

That's where the Rosary girls volleyball team is after beating Wheaton Academy 25-17, 25-21 Wednesday night on the Royals' Spike Out Breast Cancer night in Aurora.

The Royals (16-16, 3-4) have had their share of highs and lows this year. But coach Lisa Kasper sees better days ahead, especially after the way Rosary closed the match scoring the final eight points to avenge an earlier 3-game loss to the Warriors.

"That's been Rosary volleyball, up, down, it's been a roller coaster," Kasper said. "I'm really proud they hung in there. Everybody got involved. It was a good match for us."

Rosary spotted Wheaton Academy the first three points in Game 1, then quickly came back to take control. When the Warriors couldn't handle Brittany Sikora's serve, the Royals had a 5-4 lead it held the rest of the first game.

That play also proved to be a little foreshadowing, both for Sikora's excellent serving and the Warriors' inability to serve-receive.

"They just served us out of the game," Wheaton Academy coach DA Nichols said. "Not taking anything away from Rosary because they were serving very tough, but it was one of our poorest serve-receive games. We just didn't have it tonight."

Rosary setter Lindsay Juriga ran a crisp offense, finding Amy Kus in the middle for two kills and an 18-15 lead, then going outside to Amelia Wegman for two more and a 20-15 advantage.

"We've been practicing that, especially off serve-receive," Juriga said. "We connect really well.

"I was very happy with how we were passing. It gave me a lot of options. We could use the middle, outsides, all the hitters. And all the hitters were doing great."

In their loss to Wheaton Academy earlier this year, Rosary missed 16 serves. The Royals started down that road again in Game 2, missing five early.

"I started getting visions of 'Oh, no,'" Kasper said.

Wheaton Academy (10-17, 4-5) also played its best volleyball of the night during that stretch, building a 21-17 lead on kills from Molly McCoy, Sarah White and Kristine Egebrecht.

Juriga set Wegman for a kill and sideout, then Sikora did the rest to end the match. She served the final seven points, with Kus and Wegman both contributing block kills, Wheaton Academy called two timeouts yet Sikora kept going, firing an ace before kills by Kus and Emily Weber gave the Royals the final two points.

"With Brittany serving it brought the momentum up really well," Juriga said. "We were executing and doing everything well."