Girls volleyball: Jacobs ousts Dundee-Crown
You couldn't blame Jacobs senior middle Kelly Ross for taking a look across the net Monday night in the Class 4A Hampshire regional and letting out a sigh of relief.
Nothing against Dundee-Crown, but the Chargers don't have the size that Ross has played much of the year.
Ross responded, leading the Golden Eagles with 7 kills, 2 aces and 4 blocks in a 25-20, 25-19 victory.
"It very exciting for me because I'm a 5-8 middle in a league with a lot of 6-2, 6-foot girls," Ross said. "It's definitely a lot of fun when I get to get up there and swing with confidence."
No. 8 seed Jacobs (7-23) advances to the semifinals Tuesday against top-seed Huntley.
The Golden Eagles also defeated No. 7 Dundee-Crown (11-21) in their final Fox Valley Conference match last week.
"I was really happy," Jacobs coach Lisa Dwyer said. "It's not easy to come back and play a team twice close together. Dundee-Crown is always a fighting team."
The teams stayed close throughout the first half of the first set, tied at 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15. On one of the longest rallies of the night, Jenna Brown ended it with a tip kill to pull the Chargers even.
Mistakes have hurt Dundee-Crown recently, and back-to-back hitting errors put the Chargers behind 17-15, and Maddie Breeze followed with an ace for an 18-15 lead that forced Dundee-Crown coach Christine Hopkins-Muehl into her first timeout.
The Chargers had 8 hitting errors in the first set and missed a pair of serves.
"We've been struggling a little lately on serving and not sure why because that's the one thing you have control over," Hopkins-Muehl said. "Unfortunately in volleyball you aren't going to win a game getting one point at a time. We couldn't keep the momentum going. We couldn't get out of ruts, we couldn't string a few together. It wasn't our night."
The Chargers got as close as 22-20 but then served long, and the Golden Eagles won the final two points when Dundee-Crown hit long and hit into the net.
"We've had a tough season, a lot of unfortunate losses but we knew if we didn't pull together we weren't going to get the outcome we wanted," Ross said. "We came here with the mindset we were going to be positive and we weren't going to get down on each other. It was really a team effort."
Ross gave the Golden Eagles the lead for good at 9-8 in the second set with a block. Again Dundee-Crown hurt itself with 2 straight attack errors, and a Ross kill in the middle opened up a 12-8 lead.
Jacobs pulled ahead 19-12 before a backrow kill by Irene Martin helped the Chargers rally a little. They drew within 21-18 on MacKenzie Field's kill, but that was as close as they got as Jacobs finished off its win when the Chargers served long on match point.
Setter Hannah Rivera finished with 17 assists and 8 digs for Jacobs. Maggie Wallenberger had 5 kills, Jordyn Kelly 12 digs and Katie Lodi, Maggie Keller and Autumn Miller all chipped in 2 kills.
"Kelly did awesome," Dwyer said. "She showed a lot of her senior leadership. I was really proud of her. I know Autumn may not have had as many kills, but she kept a great head, kept the ball in play on her serve, stepped up her serve-receive and passing. She kept a positive attitude. And Maggie Wallenberger, she lit it up. That really got us going in game 2."
Second-place finishes at the Elgin and Lake Park tournaments highlighted the season for the Chargers, who were led Monday by Tarrah Kamp (7 kills), Jenna Thelen (4 kills), Martin (16 digs), Brown (8 assists), Claire Muhvic (7 assists), Zoe Sitarz (11 digs) and Field (2 blocks).
"Obviously everyone looks at wins and as a coach I look at wins and judge yourself on that," Hopkins-Muehl said. "But we never really got rolled over by anybody. We put up a fight.
"We had smaller kids and sometimes we didn't always match up so well, so I give them credit. A lot of times they were outsized and always played some tough defense and put up their best efforts out there. That's all you can ask."