St. Charles North blows by Geneva
St. Charles North played so well in a 25-11, 25-13 victory Tuesday night at Geneva that North Stars coach Lindsey Hawkins is going to have to rethink her Wednesday practice plans.
"It's going to be hard to go to practice and say, 'This is what we need to work on,'" Hawkins said, smiling, after her team was nearly flawless in every phase of the game. "Everybody played really well. That was very good on all accounts."
In a matchup between two teams that shared last year's Upstate Eight Conference River title with St. Charles East, the North Stars (8-1, 3-0) dominated from start to finish.
They also avenged their only loss of the season when the Vikings defeated them Aug. 29 in the Plainfield North Invitational championship game.
"It's a big rivalry," North Star senior Claire Anderson said. "Everyone always thinks North and East but we've really tried to make it a goal to take over conference. We really showed we have resiliency and we can come back after a loss like we had the other weekend."
Geneva (8-1, 2-1) scored the first 3 points and then watched the North Stars go on a 10-1 run as they started to flash their all-around game - a pair of aces from Lauren Caprini, big blocks by Claire Anderson and Jaclyn Taylor, and pinpoint passing.
Vikings coach Annie Seitelman called an early timeout but it did nothing to slow the North Stars who extended their lead to 15-5 on an Anderson kill hit so hard it knocked over the Geneva player trying to dig.
"She is power, power, power," Hawkins said of the DePaul-bound Anderson. "What's nice about Claire is I've been coaching her since she was a freshman and her repertoire of shots is so impressive. When she gets ahold of the ball I would just step back."
The North Stars finished the first set with 8 kills and just 1 hitting error while Geneva had 3 kills, 4 hitting errors and missed 4 serves.
It was more of the same in the second set, Geneva missing 3 more serves while freshman Gianna Crescenzo served 2 aces for the North Stars. St. Charles North totaled 5 aces and 1 missed serve; Geneva had 1 ace and 7 missed serves.
"We served really aggressive," Anderson said. "We've been drilling that in practice and it really paid off."
Daley Krage ended the match by blasting a ball down the line for her fifth kill, tying Anderson for the team lead. Abby Graham had 3 kills, Taylor 11 assists and Sam Lappin 7 digs.
Geneva was led by Ally Barrett with 5 kills, Julia Brown's 4 kills, Mikayla Lanasa's 11 assists and Payton Bellano with 6 digs.
"We couldn't execute," Seitelman said. "We didn't show up and play our best game which is difficult when you are playing a team as competitive and talented as North. You can't get away with things like that. I think our kids played tentative and we had quite a few mental errors."
Grace Loberg, Geneva's Wisconsin-bound junior, returned to the lineup after being sidelined with mono. She entered midway through the second set, her first game in 10 days.
"She's day-by-day," Seitelman said. "You never know how she's going to be feeling. We don't want to rush her back too quickly but we had to change something up. It's killing her not to be out there."