St. Edward finally puts away Aurora Central Catholic
Seven truly was the lucky number for St. Edward Thursday night in a Metro Suburban girls volleyball match at Aurora Central Catholic.
That's how many match points it took for the Green Wave to finally put away the gritty Chargers, who dug themselves out of a 24-21 hole in the second set before falling 25-18, 24-26, 25-23.
The Green Wave (3-0, 1-0 in the Metro Suburban Conference) stayed perfect so far this season but not before Aurora Central Catholic (2-4, 0-1) made them sweat - and not just because the gym was stifling hot.
St. Edward junior Dominique Washington blasted her eighth and final kill after the Chargers had again rallied in the third set, closing a 24-20 deficit to 24-23 until Washington's big swing.
"We had a lot of confidence," Washington said. "My coaches tell me to stay aggressive and hit as hard as you can. Just slam it down. We just had to stay up, keep the positive energy and not have any negative thoughts."
The Green Wave started strong, taking leads of 6-1 and 17-11 while never trailing in the opening set.
When St. Edward again got off to a 5-1 start in the second set and gradually extended the advantage to 21-14 on an ace from Gabby Tripicchio - who had 4 of them - it looked like it would be a quick night.
The Chargers had other ideas. Trailing 24-21, they began the comeback on an Alora Gomez block, then Gomez stepped to the service line and capitalized on several shaky serve-receive efforts to score 4 straight points and win the set.
"It was a lot of ball control, a lot of inexperience," Green Wave coach Jaime Dovichi said. "They were going at our best hitter and shook her up a little bit. As a very young team when we see that happen it throws us off a little bit."
The teams fought through 11 ties in the deciding third set, the final one at 20. Megan Barth's kill put the Green Wave ahead to stay, and blocks from Sam Boydston and Washington pushed the lead to 24-20.
The Chargers rallied gain with Maddy Trnka serving, and a block from Hannah Watkins got them as close as 24-23 before Washington finally ended it.
"We talk about never giving up and fighting through the points and we certainly did that tonight," Chargers coach Dan Drye said. "That was good. We fought and fought.
"A lot of positive things. We've made a lot of progress since our first tournament. The thing we've been working on in practice particularly is defense and rallying points, and that's what we did strong. We haven't spent a lot of time on attacking."
Tripicchio set 18 assists, spreading the offense around to Washington, Barth (8 kills, 7 digs) and Boydston (4 kills). Maegan Gross had 13 digs.
"I thought we moved the ball around a lot," Dovichi said. "We set our right side a lot. Spreading our offense out was important. I thought we served pretty aggressive."