Girls volleyball: Crystal Lake South has easy time with Dundee-Crown

The Dundee Crown girls volleyball team ran smack dab into a wall on Tuesday night in the form of an imposing Crystal Lake South frontcourt.

As much as they tried the Chargers had little success in going around, or over, or breaking down that wall as the visiting Gators cruised to a 25-19, 25-16 Fox Valley Conference win.

South (1-1, 1-1) not only had a 24-15 kill advantage but also had 18 blocks and forced D-C into 9 missed kill attempts.

It was a big turnaround for the Gators, who lost their season opener a week ago to McHenry.

"Well, anytime you can step on the court and play better than the last time you played you have to be pleased as a coach," South coach Jorie Fontana said."The biggest difference for us was communication. It helped us a lot in controlling the ball on our serve receive and allowing us more chances to get the ball to our hitters."

Kleja Cerniauskaite, a 6-foot-2 junior, set the pace for the Gators with 7 kills and 7 blocks.

"We've been working hard at practice this last week," Cerniauskaite said. "We came out a lot more energetic. We did a good job of running the ball through the middle. I think we got a little in their heads early on and I think getting off to a good start made us stronger."

Madison Dahl had a couple aces during a 6-0 run that put the Gators in command with an 11-6 lead in Game 1. South later extended the lead to 22-13. D-C pulled to within 22-18 with a 5-0 run that included 3 kills by Emma Brant, but it could get no closer. Cerniauskaite and Aurora Nero had back-to-back kills to help the Gators close out the win.

The Gators led from start to finish in Game 2. Jordan Proszenyak had 4 kills early in the second game to stake South to a 10-4 lead. The Chargers could get no closer than 5 points the rest of the way.

Nero finished with 6 blocks. Proszenyak had 5 kills, 5 blocks, and 7 digs. Emily Slimko set up the offense with 22 assists.

D-C falls to 1-2 overall and in the FVC.

"They are a good team," D-C coach Christine Hopkins-Muehl said. "But my concern is we didn't control the things we needed to do. Just way too many silly errors on our part. We did not execute the way we need to on defense."

Ayana Gard had a team high 5 kills and 8 digs for the Chargers. Brant had 4 kills, 2 blocks, and an ace. Alexandra Buckley finished with 13 assists.