Girls volleyball: : Edwardsville ends Huntley's surprise run
Huntley's girls volleyball team had every reason to believe it would come back against No. 1 seed Edwardsville on Friday.
Being an underdog has worked out well for the Red Raiders throughout the postseason.
"There have been a lot of games where we felt like the underdog, we're nervous, but we just fight back," junior outside hitter Ally Panzloff said. "I told the girls before the [match], 'If you make a mistake, I'm gonna come up and I'm gonna poke you.'
"I'm gonna make you laugh, and you're gonna make me laugh. If I make a mistake, I've got five people ready to boost me up."
After a quick first set won by the Tigers, the third-seeded Raiders put up a fight before falling, 25-12, 25-21, to Edwardsville in their Class 4A DeKalb supersectional. For the second straight postseason, Huntley finished the season one win short of its first state tournament appearance since 2001.
Edwardsville (33-7) advances to play Mother McAuley, a 25-18, 25-21 winner against Willowbrook, in the state semifinals at Illinois State University's Redbird Arena on Friday, Nov. 12.
Huntley finished the season 28-12, winning its second straight sectional and fifth straight regional titles. The Raiders have been the last local team playing in each of the past two postseasons. There was no postseason held last season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"They have so much to be proud of," Raiders coach Karen Naymola said. "I know this is a tough loss and it hurts, but you look back from where they started to where they are right now, and nobody would have predicted us to be here. ... Hopefully, next year, this will be the fuel that fires them the whole season."
Huntley had lots of trouble with the block of the Tigers (33-7) in the first set, as Edwardsville built an 11-6 lead with five of its 11 points coming on blocks. The Tigers then pushed their lead to 18-11 and finished the set on a 7-1 run.
"In [the first set], we just couldn't see past the block," Naymola said. "We were swinging right into it. But you can't fault anyone's effort tonight. [Edwardsville] is a scrappy team and they are in the [state semifinals] for a reason. Our serving, which does carry us pretty far, wasn't as strong as it has been. They are a good passing team."
Huntley came out with more aggressive serving in the second and took an 11-9 lead on a back-to-back points from junior middle blocker Avary DeBlieck, a Miami (Florida) commit. From there, however, Edwardsville won the next five points for a 14-11 lead.
The Tigers never trailed again.
The Raiders got to within a point at 15-14, 20-19 and 21-20. Trailing 23-21, a kill by Edwardsville's Gabby Saye (seven kills) and a block by Emma Garner clinched the win for the Tigers.
"Those were probably the hardest points of our season," Tigers coach Heather Ohlau said. "I said in the final timeout, these are going to be the hardest two points ... and they stepped up and did their job. Defense wins championships. Offense is the fun part, but you can't run an offense with a defense behind you. They sat in; they did their job; they read well."
Panzloff led the Raiders offense with six kills, while DeBlieck, Lizzy Williams (10 digs) and Emily Willis had three kills apiece. Maggie Duyos collected 16 assists and 15 digs, and Luma Acevedo had 17 digs to lead the defense.
"This is a very hard loss for us, but we're just going to think about this [match] every single practice, every single game. We're going to use this game to just win next year," Willis said. "We want to go to state next year. No one else thought we could get very far since we didn't take conference, but we just knew in our hearts, we believed in ourselves that we could do it."
Huntley is losing only one starter (Lauren Bauer) to graduation, along with seniors Alexis Hirsch and Avery Robertson.
"We're losing three seniors who did an awesome job for us the hole season and provided us a ton of leadership," Naymola said, "but hopefully those juniors coming back will fill the void they are leaving."