Batavia bounces back

A good solid win was exactly what the Batavia girls volleyball team needed after a loss earlier in the week against Glenbard South.

After Tuesday's 3-game loss to the Raiders, Batavia coach Lori Trippi-Payne was not pleased with the way her Bulldogs played. Two days later against Kaneland, another Western Sun Conference opponent, she liked what she saw.

The Bulldogs topped the Knights, 25-12, 25-11 Thursday in Batavia.

"It's definitely what we needed after Glenbard South," Trippi-Payne said. "We needed to take this one to get back to where we needed to be and come out and show some confidence... This is what I've been waiting to see."

"We needed the win because after (Glenbard South), (Trippi-Payne) wasn't too happy with us," Batavia senior Melissa Norville added. "There were a lot of little things we messed up on, but we definitely improved on those in practice (Wednesday)."

There were 4 ties in Game 1 before Batavia (6-4, 3-1) scored 10 straight points that quickly got rid of an 11-11 tie. The Bulldogs scored their points behind Lauren Mytnik's serving, Kaneland errors and kills from Taylor Koncelik, Katie Rueffer and Kelsey VandenBorn. At the end of the run, they led 21-11.

A kill from Kaneland's Brittany Nelson stopped the rally, only to have Batavia tally the final 4 points behind more kills from VandenBorn, Norville and Koncelik, who finished with 5 of her 6 total kills in Game 1.

"We were so excited and pumped to get out and really push Kaneland to the max," Koncelik said.

Kaneland (3-7, 1-3) led early in Game 2 by as much as 7-4 until Batavia went on a 7-point run behind the serving of Bradley-bound Laura Doolin. After that, the Bulldogs never surrendered their lead and finished the match on another huge run.

With the score 15-10, Batavia reeled off 9 consecutive points, thanks to Koncelik's serving, Kaneland errors and blocks and kills from Norville, Doolin and Rueffer. A Bulldog net violation kept them from tallying a 10th straight point, but the match ended a point later on one of Norville's 7 kills.

"We made a lot of silly mistakes tonight, but we'll be fine," Kaneland coach Todd Weimer said. "Batavia is a good team, but we need to come out and do better than that."