Girls volleyball: St. Viator recovers in time, earns sectional final berth

St. Viator found new life just in time against Regina Dominican.

The Lions' girls volleyball team looked like road pizza after dropping the first set 25-10 and trailing 5-1 in set 2. But the Lions suddenly roared to life and came away with a tasty 10-25, 25-16, 25-17 victory in the semifinals of the Class 3A Woodstock sectional.

The Lions will play Marian Central for the sectional title on Thursday.

St. Viator trailed 8-6 in game 2 before scoring 12 straight points to take control. A hitting error by Regina gave the Lions the serve and Alyssa Forbes, who led the Lions' attack with 9 kills, served 11 points in a row.

Swinging the momentum so dramatically wasn't all that complicated.

"We just decided that we had to play with pride," said St. Viator coach Charlie Curtin. "The way we came out, we were flat, we weren't playing very well. It looked like we were asleep and Regina put it to us that first set. We buckled down, decided that we were going to cut down on the errors we made on our side of the court and just go from there."

The Lions continued their surge at the start of the third set, racing out to a 7-1 lead and slowly pulling away.

Emily Hayes added 7 kills and 4 blocks and Gabi Thomas had 5 kills on 9 of 11 hitting for St. Viator (21-17). Ellie Meyer had 19 digs. Setter Michaela Mueller was 86 for 86 with 18 assists.

The Lions looked out of synch in game 1, trailing 2-0 before getting the ball over the net. They fell behind 10-1 and never really caught up. A mini-run midway through the set made it 17-9, but the Panthers answered with a 6-0 run that all but put the game away.

They fell behind quickly in the second set as well. They rallied to tie it at 5-5 on a block by Forbes, only to fall behind 8-5. But when they finally took their first lead at 10-9 they never looked back.

The Lions did a number of things well to turn the match around.

"We were serving aggressively," said Curtin. "We put the ball on the court. And once we got in rhythm we played pretty good defense. We got a lot of touches on balls, and got a couple of huge block kills that got the momentum going."