Girls volleyball: Dundee-Crown puts away McHenry
Having beaten McHenry twice during the regular season, Dundee-Crown's girls volleyball team didn't want to make the mistake of taking the Warriors lightly when they met for the third time in the regional semifinals.
With that motivation, the Chargers started strong and finished off the Warriors, 25-15, 25-20, in the Class 4A Dundee-Crown regional Tuesday night. The Chargers will face Crystal Lake Central, which defeated Rockford East in the evening's second match, Thursday at 6 p.m.
"We don't want to take any opponent lightly," said Chargers coach Christine Hopkins-Muehl. "It's hard to beat a team three times, and we know from having been in a similar situation before, that as the underdog you have an anything-goes attitude and that can be beneficial."
D-C (27-9) broke open the first set with a 10-0 run to go up 20-8. Breanna Novak served 2 aces during the run. Down 21-9, the Warriors rallied mildly, but the Chargers put the game away on a block by Emma Brant.
Gina Pagano finished with 9 kills and 8 digs for the Chargers. Frankie Cavallaro added 7 kills, 15 assists and a pair of blocks. Ashley Raby had 6 kills and Zoe Sitarz had 8 digs.
The Chargers never could shake McHenry in the second game. In fact, the Warriors took their only lead of the night midway through the game. Down 10-8, the Chargers scored 4 straight points to regain the lead and slowly pulled away.
Hopkins-Muehl got the team turned around with an old-fashioned pep talk during a timeout.
"After the timeout, coach said, 'You've got to pick up the pace,' " Pagano recalled. "'It's going to be a totally different pace on Thursday, so we've got to get our energy up and turn things around right now.' It's more like the mental aspect. We were a little slow in the second game."
With D-C leading just 19-17, Cavallaro pounded down a hard kill, giving D-C the serve. Pagano immediately served up an ace, and a hitting error by McHenry made it 22-17.
"We definitely didn't want to underestimate McHenry," echoed Pagano. "We came in and had an excellent day of practice knowing what we had to do to win."