Batavia halts Geneva rally to claim 2nd regional title
Underdog Geneva wanted to push Batavia to a third game Saturday in the Class 4A Geneva regional championship to see how the Bulldogs handled the pressure.
Turns out Batavia displayed enough poise in tight situations they didn't let the Vikings get to Game 3.
The Bulldogs' blockers came up big late to reverse a 24-23 deficit in Game 2 and quiet at least half of a noisy Geneva gym for a 25-15, 27-25 victory.
No. 3 Batavia (32-5) won the second regional title in school history, joining the 2005 team, and will play No. 2 seed York at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Bartlett sectional semifinals.
“It's always fun to see how you measure up to other teams and see who has more heart,” Batavia junior Mary Nilles said. “Our team has a lot of heart.
“We want to set the tone for Batavia volleyball for the future to come. We wanted to be that team that other teams want to be.”
The Bulldogs came out firing in Game 1. Tied three times early, Batavia grabbed the lead on middle Kristen Koncelik's kill and never looked back.
Batavia got the ball often to Koncelik for 6 kills in Game 1. Setter Mary Kate Bryant said after Caitlin Piechota's big game in the first meeting with Geneva, Batavia wanted to show some new looks.
“We knew we had to mix it up because we played them before and Caitlin played great and they knew a lot of balls were going to go to her,” Bryant said. “We tried to give it Kristen and she put balls down like I knew she would.”
Batavia also served tough with five aces in Game 1 and two more in Game 2. Koncelik and Meghan Fabian led with 3 and 2, respectively.
A Geneva net violation closed out a shaky first game for the Vikings (23-14), then they regrouped and played much more at their usual level in Game 2.
“Their defense improved a lot,” Bryant said. “We knew they weren't going to come out and give us that game.”
Geneva took its first lead of the day at 5-4 on Brooke Binette's ace in Game 2. That started a back-and-forth battle with 15 ties and 8 lead changes. Neither team led by more than three.
Geneva coach KC Johnsen called his second timeout down 22-20 and the Vikings responded scoring four of the next five points for a 24-23 lead. Ashley Boser had one of her team-high 6 kills in that stretch.
Geneva had a swing for the win only to be blocked by Koncelik and Nilles to tie the game at 24-24. Another Koncelik block, followed by Binette's cross-court winner, kept the game tied at 25. Nilles put Batavia in the sectional with sets on the next two points to Koncelik and Bryant.
Piechota led both teams with 15 kills and 12 digs.
“They (Geneva) picked it up, started playing more scrappy and picking up all our balls,” Piechota said. “We had to come back hitting balls harder. I had a feeling we were going to pull through, we had a lot of momentum on our side.”
Nilles set 15 assists and Bryant 14.
“We play that tough schedule all year long to be ready for stuff like this,” Batavia coach Lori Trippi-Payne said. “Even when they had us at 24-23, we were still ready to come back.”
Geneva senior Riley Sullivan had 5 kills and sophomore Hannah Buck filling in for the injured Melissa Hanika added 3.
“We thought it would go three,” Johnsen said. “I thought we were pretty composed when we switched sides, win the second game and put pressure on them. I would still like to know what would have happened if we'd have won that second game. We had a big crowd, good environment. It seemed like we were gaining confidence and momentum as the game went on.”
The Vikings will welcome a sophomore team next year that went 34-1 after the varsity's successful season this fall that exceeded Johnsen's expectations.
“We won a lot of matches we weren't supposed to win and that's a credit to the girls,” Johnsen said. “I give them a ton of credit for executing and doing the thing we ask them to do.”