Girls volleyball: St. Charles East battles past WW South in 3
With Tuesday's DuKane Conference match against Wheaton Warrenville South slipping away, St. Charles East turned to a freshman to get back on track.
Kate Goudreau put down 5 of her team-high 9 kills in the deciding third set of a back-and-forth 25-19, 24-26, 25-21 victory.
Two of those kills came on back-to-back points in the third set when the Tigers had opened up their biggest lead, 15-9, and looked poised to close out the match.
Instead, Goudreau helped settle her team down. Lauren Pondei followed with an ace, the Tigers made a couple errors, then setter Nina Scoliere found Goudreau for another kill to cap a 6-point run that tied the set at 15-15.
Goudreau's older teammates took notice, including junior captain Anita Prybell.
"Kate stepped it up so much," Prybell said. "She was nervous but she can put a ball down when she puts her mind to it. Having everyone on board really got us through that third set."
That 6-0 run set the stage for a nail-biting finish with eight ties or lead changes. The Saints went ahead to stay at 21-20 when Rachel Sheehan blasted a ball off WW South's block.
Another Goudreau kill, a Tigers hitting error and Jessica Garland's ace took the Saints to match point, and middle Amarion Isbell ended things with her fourth block of the night.
"We have not finished in a long time," Saints coach Jennie Kull said. "This is another step in the right direction.
"That's a great team so we feel blessed to pull it out. Hopefully it gives us a little confidence to get going on what we need to."
St. Charles East (5-4, 2-0) jumped on WW South (7-5, 0-2) early, leading by as much as 20-10 in the first set on another Garland ace.
She had 4 aces in the match and Kayla Daros and Scoliere both had 2 aces.
"We served tough and that's a huge difference," Kull said. "We had been serving long last match."
The Saints nearly ended the match in two sets when they stormed back from a 19-13 deficit in the second set to take a 23-21 lead. St. Charles East nearly went up 24-21 before Tigers junior Zayna Meyer saved what looked like a sure winner to keep a rally going that she eventually ended with one of her match-high 16 kills. That got the Tigers going, and after another Meyer kill made it 25-24, Lizzie Chiesa's cross-court shot landed in to force the third set.
Meyer, committed to BYU where she will set, gave the Saints fits all night with her 17 digs while putting points away with a wide variety of shots.
"We know defense is our big strength so putting up a good block and being ready to move was really important," said Prybell, a club teammate with Meyer. "Zayna was tipping and rolling tonight so just being ready for that and having our block stay strong because Zayna is really smart and if the block wasn't there she would hit through it. Kind of being on our toes being ready to play whatever she gave us."
Emily Stallmann played a key role on that defense with 17 digs. Scoliere spread 19 assists around to Prybell (6 kills), Skyler Misch (5 kills) and Sheehan (4 kills), among others.
In addition to Meyer, Darby Harris (26 digs, 2 aces), Kaileigh Ammons (10 kills), Sarah Burau (25 assists) and Lizzie Chiesa (6 kills, 11 digs) all made big plays for the Tigers, now in a hole in the DuKane standings with consecutive road losses to the Saints and Geneva.
"A lot of that was uncharacteristic for us," Tigers coach Bill Schreier said. "Give credit where credit is due. They made the plays when they had to and we didn't. We had a lot of scramble plays and that's not typical of us. It was a very disjointed effort. Very similar to the Geneva match. When we needed a point we couldn't get it."