D-C hangs on for victory

The Dundee-Crown girls volleyball team couldn't find much rhythm offensively Thursday night against Huntley.

But the Chargers' defense kept the ball off the floor more often than not, especially in the final game, as D-C defeated the Red Raiders, 15-25, 25-23, 25-23, in a Fox Valley Conference crossover match in Carpentersville.

"Our defense picked up in Game 3," Chargers coach Tracy Williams said. "We started moving a little bit better."

D-C (2-0) grabbed an early lead in the deciding game and led by as many 8, 20-12 and 21-13, taking advantage of several Huntley mistakes. The Red Raiders (1-1) got within 2 at 23-21 after an Ashley Smith kill, one of 6 the freshman had in the match. A Marissa Peterson kill gave the Chargers match point at 24-21, but Huntley would not go away easy.

After a service error by the Chargers, Huntley's Amy Fanella served an ace to cut the deficit to 24-23. The Chargers' Stephaine Thorson put away her team-high seventh kill on the third match point to give D-C the victory.

"They really kept their composure when (Huntley) was coming back," Williams said of her team. "They played to the end. That was nice to see."

"To almost overcome the poor play that we had I was so impressed," said third-year Huntley coach Michelle Jakubowski. "We still continued to play with so much heart and passion. I haven't that from one of my Huntley teams."

The Red Raiders trailed in the opening game 9-2 before scoring 23 of the final 29 points of the game. Both teams struggled to make a good pass off the serve in the game, Huntley early on and D-C later.

"Our serve receive wasn't very good at the time," Williams said. "We broke down and decided that we weren't going to pass the ball. Obviously there's zero offense when you can't hit the ball."

D-C again jumped out early in Game 2 and led by as many as 7, 17-10, before the Red Raiders rallied to get within 1 at 24-23. But a hitting error by Huntley gave Game 2 to the Chargers.

Huntley played without senior captain Allyson Stellmach for the final two games after she injured her right ankle on a play at the net late in the opening game.

"We lost our big middle who plays all the way around and is the primary serve receiver," Jakubowski said. "But that really wasn't the issue. The two people (Cristina Munoz and Alison Blanken) who came in and played for her did a nice job coming in and filling in for Allyson."

Toni Jaehnig led Huntley with 11 kills. Amanda Carroll had 19 assists and Amy Dion added 22 digs. But the Red Raiders had 12 service errors, giving Huntley easy points.

Kelsi Cook added 5 kills for D-C, which got 13 assists from Katie Cutinello.