Oswego East downs Waubonsie Valley

Megan Maier missed being with her friends on the Oswego East volleyball team in the spring.

She made the most of her return.

Maier, a junior outside hitter, opted to play with her Sports Performance club team earlier this year when the club and high school seasons conflicted.

In her first match with Oswego East in two years, Maier had 3 kills and served an ace as part of her team's first 10 points. The Wolves went on to beat visiting Waubonsie Valley 25-17, 25-15, making first-year coach Dina Beamon a winner in her debut in Oswego.

"We were very, very excited," Maier said. "We don't play a lot in practice, we do a lot of control work and a lot of conditioning. So we were excited to get out there and crush them."

Maier crushed shots from the left pin for Oswego East's first 2 points of the match, the first down the line and the second crosscourt. She drilled a shot off a Waubonsie defender's chest for her third of 4 kills in the first set and her ace gave the Wolves an early commanding 10-3 lead.

"The outside is where I play. I had a job tonight and that's what I have to do," Maier said. "It's really exciting to be back. It's a lot more fun than club and I have a lot better connections with all the girls here. It was hard in the spring because a lot of the girls that I'm friends with were all playing school. I was at club and I couldn't come to the games. It was completely different."

Oswego East took control for good in the first set with a 6-1 run for a 19-13 lead. Maier's kill was followed by Savina Trujillo's shot off a Waubonsie overpass, followed by back-to-back kills from Trujillo.

Beamon beamed about the first impression Maier made Wednesday.

"She makes an awesome addition," Beamon said. "We didn't really know what to expect because we didn't see her before and of course me being new. I wasn't sure, but after tonight she really showed what she could be on the court."

Waubonsie actually scored the first 2 points of the match, and appeared to take a 3-2 lead in the second set on Gabby Tlustochowski's crosscourt kill.

But the Warriors lost the point when a rotation violation was called, the first of three whistled against the Warriors in the set that had head coach Kari Galen looking at the book after the match.

"I just looked in the book and what I had written down there was the exact same thing as to what I had set for them on the court," Galen said. "I don't really know what happened, but we needed to make sure that we would adjust. We talked about them, not letting them get in their head."

The second set was delayed four times as officials double-checked Waubonsie's rotation. Beamon liked how her girls responded to the stop-start nature of play. With Oswego East leading 11-9, Abby Winograd put down 2 kills sandwiched around a Waubonsie mishit and Chloe Austin ace for the Wolves for a 15-9 lead.

"We responded to adversity," Beamon said. "I really thought we would lose momentum when we had all those delays, but I told them to relax, stay calm and they came back out and were ready to go."

Leah Tubbs had 5 kills and Ally Smith 5 assists and 5 digs for Waubonsie, which never led after the first 3 points of the match.

"There were some moments that we did really great things, but we were out of system most of the time," Galen said. "When you're out of system you're not able to use the weapons that we have in the front row. That made it a little bit of a challenge for us tonight."