Girls volleyball: Huntley's Jakubowski captains Fox All-Area team
Following Huntley's victory over St. Charles East last week to win the Class 4A Dundee-Crown sectional, Saints coach Jennie Kull offered an opinion of Red Raiders and Seton Hall-bound setter Taylor Jakubowski that pretty much every opposing coach shared.
"She's a fabulous setter and I'm glad she's a senior," Kull said. "She'll do great things in college."
That win over the Saints highlighted a senior season that saw Jakubowski add 786 more assists to her school record, plus serve 65 aces.
More than those numbers were the championships for the Red Raiders. They claimed the Fox Valley Conference crown and an elusive sectional title before a heartbreaking supersectional loss to Wheaton Warrenville South when they let leads slip away in both sets.
Still, the Red Raiders followed a 35-4 season last year by going 34-6 this year, and Jakubowski is the captain of the 2019 Daily Herald Fox All-Area girls volleyball team.
"We had great chemistry and I thought we played very well as a team," Jakubowski said. "I thought it was a great senior year and a great season to go out to."
Maybe the only coach not glad Jakubowski is a senior is Huntley's Karen Naymola.
She recognized Jakubowski's talent and leadership skills early, taking the unusual step of naming her a captain as a freshman.
"Taylor is one of the best athletes I have ever coached," Naymola said. "Her ability to lead at all times and in all different situations is remarkable. Leaders help themselves and others to do the right things. They set direction, build an inspiring vision, and create something new. That is exactly what she has done for this program. She gave her team direction, and she created a new culture with this team."
Jakubowski said she relishes that leadership role.
"I love that," Jakubowski said. "I love trying to be a role model for everyone. I try to make everyone look up to me. So being a captain for four years really meant a lot to me."
A lifelong Huntley resident, Jakubowski's older sister Taryn also became a Division I athlete playing soccer at Creighton. She has two younger brothers, Jake and TJ.
Her dad Andy, a baseball player and now the head baseball coach at Huntley, and her mother Michelle, a volleyball player, also were both college athletes. Her mother, the head coach at Barrington and the former athletic director at Huntley, coached at the Sky High Volleyball Club, where Taylor started playing when she was 6 years old.
"My mom and dad have been a great impact in my life," said Jakubowski, who listed wiffle ball games and runs as something her family likes to do together.
With that background, Jakubowski made an immediate impact as a freshman, the first of four straight All-Area selections. She had 793 assists that year, 734 her sophomore season and 895 as a junior to give her 3,208 at Huntley.
According to the IHSA, that puts her third all-time in the state behind only Sarah Kwasigroch (Sandburg) with 3,659 from 2001-2004 and Anne Butts from Normal University.
While her numbers have been great all four years, Jakubowski knows she's made strides as a player - with more improvements to come in college at Seton Hall, where she committed to as a sophomore.
"I have learned more about the game and my IQ went a little higher and I also went into the gym a lot and did a lot more reps on my outside balls. I thought that improved a lot more consistently," Jakubowski said.
"I'm just so excited to get out there (to Seton Hall) and keep going in the gym and getting more reps and get super fit too. I'm so excited. I committed so early I feel I'm just waiting to get there."
With that excitement about what lies ahead, Jakubowski knows she will miss what she just completed.
"I'm going to miss the atmosphere and I loved Karen as a coach," Jakubowski said. "She literally was there for me for everything, and I'm going to miss the family aspect of this team."