Girls volleyball: Walden, Waubonsie Valley work for fourth place at tourney

Waubonsie Valley senior Melissa Walden is not going to let a few early season losses rain on her parade nor dampen the spirits of a Warriors volleyball team with high expectations for this fall.

The Texas A&M-bound setter would prefer her team not sit at 3-3 after dropping a three-setter with Minooka in the third-place match of the Crimson Classic at Plainfield North on Saturday afternoon. But Walden knows her team has plenty of talent and she expects this year's squad to win many more matches than it loses.

"We just started (this week) and this is our first tournament," she said after the Warriors lost 25-22, 23-25, 25-17 to Minooka after coming up short to Nazareth in the Gold Bracket semifinals. "Obviously, we're not undefeated but we're playing well together and that's a great sign since it's just the start of the season. We can only get better from here."

The 4-1 Indians, paced by 6-foot-3 outside hitter Heidi Bonde, who finished with 9 kills, pulled out the opening game against Waubonsie Valley by scoring seven of the final 10 points after the Warriors had taken a 19-18 lead.

But the Warriors drew even after they won a tight second set 25-23, with the winning point coming on an attack from senior Gabi Croll, who paced her team with a match-high 8 kills. Trinity Evans also had 5 kills for a balanced Warriors attack, and Walden had 13 assists to go along with 4 kills of her own. Minooka, whose only loss came against tourney champion Sandburg, prevailed in the decisive third set after jumping ahead 11-4.

"I think this weekend was really good for us," said Croll, who like Walden was quick to see the positives in her team's play. "We had a really rough first match at home on Wednesday against Oswego East. But in this tournament we definitely stepped up with speed of the flow, and we picked up our play to utilize a bunch of different options offensively and we hustled more than we have in the past."

Waubonsie Valley coach Kari Galen, whose program has won back to back regional crowns and has grander goals this fall, joked a bit about her team's tournament finish this weekend. "Last year we got fourth place at every single tournament we went to, so it seems like that's where we decided we belong," she said. "We just kind of became a little predictable, I think, and that's something we're going to work on."

Neuqua Valley dropped a three-set battle with Plainfield North to finish sixth at the 32-team event. Senior outside hitter Faith Johnson was named to the all-tourney team - as was the Warriors' Walden - after a strong weekend where she provided leadership for a young lineup that was without a pair of middles. With junior Riley Ammenhauser visiting the University of Michigan on a track recruiting trip and another middle hitter injured, the Wildcats went with freshman middle Bryanna Jones this weekend.

"This is a great tournament to take sixth when missing two girls. I'm very happy," Neuqua Valley coach Kelly Simon said. "Compared to how we played against St. Charles East on Wednesday with our full lineup this was phenomenal. We utilized a lot of our kids and they all stepped up."