DeKalb eliminates South Elgin

Once the nerves settled Thursday evening the South Elgin girls volleyball team started to play the way it wanted.

Unfortunately for the Storm, it wasn’t enough. Top seed DeKalb ended South Elgin’s six-match win streak and its season with a 25-7, 26-24 victory in the Class 4A Elgin regional championship match.

“We beat ourselves the first game. We didn’t even give them the opportunity to show us how good they are,” Storm coach Joni Plach said. “The second game we did exactly what we talked about what we wanted to do. We wanted to leave everything we had on the court.”

The Storm (13-18) struggled with almost every part of the game in the opening game. The Storm had trouble serve receiving, digging and hitting. South Elgin had only 2 kills in the first game as the Barbs (28-6) scored 10 of the first 11 points and the final 9 to easily win the first game.

But that seemed to loosen up South Elgin. The Storm played with more confidence and had fun on the court in the second game.

DeKalb, which advanced to the Prairie Ridge sectional semifinals to play Cary-Grove on Tuesday, led 5-3 before South Elgin went on a 6-0 run to take a 9-5 lead. The Storm’s Ashley Oandasan had 4 consecutive aces during the run.

“It was like a thrill,” said Oandasan, a sophomore. “The minute I got that first ace, it was like, ‘We found something.’ We kept going with and going with it. Then more momentum built up.”

The Barbs regained the lead 16-15 after two kills from Courtney Bemis and one from Arizona recruit Emily Bemis. The teams traded points until a McKenna Teboda ace and a Courtney Bemis kill gave DeKalb a 23-21 lead. After an Amanda Nadler kill got the Storm back within 1, 23-22, a hitting error gave the Barbs match point.

Oandasan had a kill and a block from Ali Osborne tied the game 24-24. Back-to-back kills from Courtney Bemis and Kendall Baum ended the match.

“(The Storm) were scrappy. They fought,” Barbs coach Stephanie Gooden said. “They did a great job. They fought back hard.”

Emily Bemis and Courtney Bemis each had 6 kills for DeKalb. Baum added 4 kills. Jessica Schafer had 3 kills, 3 blocks and 2 aces.

Oandasan led the Storm with 4 kills and 5 aces. Nadler and Bri Reum each added 3 kills.

“We (will) have a lot of returning seniors for next year,” Oandasan said. “It’s basically going to be the same team. We know we can work together well as a team and we are able to do this. We showed it tonight. I’m really proud of the way we played.”