Benet defeats West Aurora

He may be only a sophomore but Pat Dougherty of Benet plays like a seasoned veteran.

On Tuesday Dougherty’s meticulous setting, on-court leadership and powerful serving led the Redwings to a 25-23, 25-10 win over West Aurora in the semifinals of the Benet regional.

The Redwings (23-11) will face Downers Grove South in the finals tonight.

“We pick on Pat a little because he’s a sophomore,” said outside hitter Bobby Wehrli. “But he’s learned a lot and he leads us out there. He puts the ball where it needs to be for us to get kills.”

Dougherty had 19 assists and 4 aces, Wehrli had 10 kills and Kevin Weithers had 9 blocks as the Redwings overcame a slow start to win in a squeaker in Game 1 and in a rout in Game 2.

“Wehrli’s huge kills at important times kept us pumped up,” said Benet coach Amy Van Eekeren. “And Weithers worked hard and kept the ball alive all night. The serving by Pat, Burke Hrovat and Wehrli was just amazing.”

“Our timing is good now,” Dougherty said. “I had to work on it for a while, but I’m in a groove right now. Sometimes we dig a hole for ourselves, but we have good communication and the confidence we can come back. And we have some amazing hitters.”

The Redwings fell behind 6-0 at the beginning, caught up and went down again 18-12 but their powerful, accurate serving saved the day.

“Our team served really well tonight, especially Pat,” Weithers said. “Strong serves lead to easy points and if you have really good serving, the other team falls apart.”

“The serving pulled us out in both games,” Van Eekeren said.

From the time they were down 18-12 to the end of Game 1 almost every serve was either an ace, or it was tough for the Blackhawks (19-17) to handle and led to a bad pass or a hitting error.

Dougherty put an exclamation point on that stretch with a low line drive ace for game point.

“I think the momentum from that last serve, carried into the second game,” said Weithers.

The Redwings just took control of Game 2 from beginning to end, starting with a 5-0 lead and building from there.

“They were really giving us good serves and they all tailed off to make them almost impossible to hit,” said West Aurora coach Tolis Koskinaris.

Koskinaris thought his players may have tried a little too hard and never got loose.

It also didn’t help the Blackhawks attack that outside hitter Eric Roggeman broke his foot in gym class earlier in the day.

“We’re limited in attacking options,” Kosknaris said. “Take one away and it’s like going into a gunfight with two bullets.”

The Blackhawks were led by Binali Khurshidov with 5 kills and Joe Frommert with 4.