Girls volleyball: St. Francis struggles in sectional semifinal
"All gas and no brakes," is how Belvidere North coach Amanda Carlson described her team's play during the first set of Monday's Class 3A sectional semifinal match against St. Francis in Sycamore.
It is an accurate description of the Blue Thunder's pace during the first set. After Addy Horner's kill put St. Francis up 1-0, it was all Belvidere North. Paced by seven aces, the Blue Thunder took control and won the set, 25-4.
St. Francis adjusted in the second set, but it wasn't enough to slow down Belvidere North, as it won the second set 25-16 to take the sectional semifinal.
The Blue Thunder (36-2), the subsectional top seed, will square off with Kaneland (34-3), the one seed in the other subsectional, for the Sycamore sectional title Wednesday night. The Knights downed Crystal Lake South (31-6) in two sets (25-15, 25-20) to win the other semifinal Monday.
"We talked in the locker room about not taking St. Francis for granted. They are a young team. They are a hungry team. They have nothing to lose," Carlson said. "We said we had to come out all gas and no brakes and they did that."
"Their serving was incredible. Quite frankly their serving took us out of our offense or anything that we were trying to get going so kudos to them," St. Francis coach Lisa Ston said. "I love that their ace-to-error ratio was amazing tonight, so I congratulate them."
Belvidere North jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second set, but St. Francis (24-14) battled back and tied the match at 8-all. The Blue Thunder tried to pull away, but the Spartans tied again at 9-9 on a Shay McMillen kill and at 10-10 on a Brook Everett (3 kills) spike.
Another Horner kill pulled St. Francis within 16-13 but then the momentum swung back to Belvidere North. The Blue Thunder went on a 9-3 run to close out the match.
"We started our lineup (in the second set) up with a different rotation to try to combat 16 (Rachel Scott) and 2 (Ava Irvin) a little bit," Ston said. "It worked for a while, we fought point for point with them, but their senior experience certainly took over."
"Serve and passing is our bread and butter. That's what makes us special. Certainly, in the first set, the serving and passing really stood out for us," Carlson said. "That is something we work on. We are undersized so if we don't serve and pass well, we are average and beatable. If we serve and pass well, we neutralize that. We are not a very tall team."
Irvin led the Blue Thunder with nine kills. The senior also tallied four aces. Classmate Kaitlin Leider notched seven spikes.
"You don't want to end your season on a game like this one, but you can't let that define your season," said Ston. "We had a great season. This was our 14th loss, 10 of them were in three sets by three points so we certainly fought. We also dealt with some injuries throughout the season. When we were in rhythm, we were pretty good."