Girls volleyball: Abramic waits her turn, then helps Benet topple St. Charles East

Benet Academy senior Caelin Abramic has patiently waited her turn to contribute on the Redwings' girls varsity volleyball team.

The fact that Abramic wasn't in coach Brad Baker's starting lineup for Wednesday's nonconference match against St. Charles East just meant that she just had to wait a little longer.

However, the 6-foot outside hitter made her presence felt immediately upon entering the match, recording a block and a kill in the early going for the Redwings.

Abramic finished the night with a match-high 8 kills during Benet's 25-15, 25-23 victory over the host Saints (5-3) in St. Charles.

"Caelin has played front row all of the time," said Baker of Abramic. "She's a good passer - we just have a lot of good passers so we're trying to find one percent here, one percent there. Whenever we put her in a role, she seems to step up."

One of four seniors on a relatively inexperienced team, Abramic has found herself in a leadership role despite her own lack of varsity playing time.

"This is my first year playing on varsity because there's always been a lot of older girls ahead of me," she said. "I feel I definitely have to step up this year because we have three freshmen playing. It's really important to be a leader."

Benet (8-1) capitalized on numerous unforced mistakes from St. Charles East (4 service errors, 6 hitting errors) in the opening set, jumping out to leads of 18-8 and 24-13 while helping silence the Saints' faithful.

"Tonight, we got out fast," said Baker. "That's one way to keep the crowd from screaming and yelling so much."

Led by Abramic and teammates Audrey Aeleson (5 kills), Caroline Carens (4 kills, 2 aces) and Ava Novak (5 kills), the Redwings enjoyed another fast start in the second set, grabbing a 12-4 lead before the Saints settled down.

Following 3 consecutive service aces from senior Taylor Swanson, the Saints battled to within 12-11 before a pair of aces by Carens enabled Benet to extend its lead to 16-11.

Trailing 19-15, the Saints pushed again, tying the score at 20-all on a kill from Kendra Dziubinski. Swanson's fourth ace of the night forged a 23-23 deadlock before Novak's kill and an East hitting error sealed the decision.

"Taylor did a nice job serving," said Saints coach Jennie Kull. "She did the same thing last weekend when we were down 24-17 and brought us back to win."

The Saints also received contributions from Isabella Mosquera (3 kills, 2 blocks, ace), Alexis Crossen (5 kills), Kate Goudreau (4 kills) and Julia Ferrandino (3 kills, block).

"This is a learning curve," said Kull. "There's good things coming out of it. We just have to keep getting better."