Girls volleyball: St. Francis at its best against Montini

St. Francis senior middle hitter Skylar Lukowych eventually agreed that she played her best overall volleyball match of the season Wednesday.

So did the Spartans.

With 10 seniors and plenty of momentum and motivation, the Spartans rose to the occasion for a 25-15, 25-20 victory over rival Montini at the Class 3A Glenbard South sectional final.

"Coming into this, we knew we just had to come out with fire," Lukowych said. "Just because we've made it so far on our road to state, we wanted it so bad that we just needed to come out with a win."

St. Francis (29-10), the sectional's No. 3 seed, plays Latin (29-2) at 7 p.m. Friday in the Timothy Christian supersectional for a chance at its first downstate trip since the 2015 Class 4A championship season, which many current Spartans watched from the stands as freshmen.

The past two seasons the Spartans lost in the 4A sectionals, including 2017 with only two seniors. Top-seeded Montini (29-6) had beaten St. Francis 22-25, 25-18, 25-22 Oct. 15 in Lombard.

"The last time we played Montini, we kept getting tooled and our blocking wasn't there, so we stepped it up this game," said St. Francis senior Ashley Zulauf.

"There was a lot of communication, which is key in these types of games. Going through last year, we have that (varsity) experience. We know what it takes to get to the next level and I feel like we accomplished that tonight."

Junior Anna Calcagno led St. Francis' balanced offense with 8 kills, followed by 6 from Zulauf, 4 by Lukowych and 3 each from seniors Olivia Hojnicki and Katelyn Hanrahan. Seniors Sam Ward and AnnaBelle Tomei each had 10 assists, and senior libero Maria Russo had 6 digs and Ward and Zulauf 5 apiece.

Montini junior Julia Marciniak had 6 kills and senior Caitlyn Meeks and freshman Paige Pickering 4 each. Junior Tess Noonan had 15 assists and senior Joslyn Boyer and Meeks 9 and 5 digs, respectively.

St. Francis built upon the synergy from Monday's three-set semifinal victory over No. 2 Nazareth (31-5), which brought the best record to sectionals.

Unlike their earlier meeting with Montini, the Spartans led 5-4 in aces and achieved their best blocking match of the season with 9 for points. Lukowych and Hojnicki had 5 solo or block assists and Hanrahan 4.

"Probably between this one and Nazareth, we are playing at the top of our game right now, which is great," St. Francis coach Lisa Ston said.

"They are kind of realizing that they're kind of connecting. We're finally jelling right now, so they are trying to use that from game to game. They were very excited to play Montini again. They were hungry to come back and avenge that loss."

The Spartans had 13 kills with 2 attack errors in the first set. They pulled away with three points served by Calcagno for an 18-13 lead and six from junior Katlyn Sipes for game point at 24-15.

The Broncos battled back in the second set and led 13-9 and 19-18, but Zulauf kills put the Spartans ahead 21-19 and 22-20. After a Montini attack error at 23-22, Tomei finished off the match with an ace.

Montini lost in the Class 3A sectional finals for the second straight year.

"That was probably the first time all season that we actually got beat by someone. Unfortunately, it came at the wrong time," Montini coach Steve Dowjotas said.

"The first matchup we controlled the tempo, we served them off the court where they were out of system. Today they passed well, they blocked well so they were in system the entire time. You get a good team and they're cruising like that, they're hard to beat."

Ston said the Spartans knew beforehand that contributions in the middle from Lukowych and Hojnicki would be important. Outside hitter Hanrahan, the lone freshman call-up for the 2015 postseason lineup, contributed to blocks for 20-19 and 23-20 leads in the second game.

"Blocking's always fun because it always makes the hitter feel denied. It was definitely a good experience to shut them down," Lukowych said.

The Broncos graduate five seniors: four-year varsity players Boyer, Maddie Pickering and Johanna Kingsfield, Meeks and important role player Julia Briggs. Meeks has played varsity since transferring to Montini as a sophomore.

Montini has gone downstate once, taking fourth in Class 3A in 2014 after the 2013 team set the single-season school record for victories at 30-4. Dowjotas said this year's schedule was significantly tougher.

"(Dowjotas) just said we made this team known the past couple of years. We put this team on the map. We (seniors) hope that it stays like that and keeps getting better and better," said Boyer, who will play at Iowa.

"Honestly, we played well, but St. Francis played very, very well. They beat us. We played well. So did they."