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Sports

Girls Volleyball: Tigers Prevail Over Falcons

Wheaton Warrenville South wins hard-fought DVC match, 28-26, 25-22, over cross-town rival Wheaton North.

Hard-fought matches are to be expected whenever and ’s girls volleyball teams take the court. And Tuesday’s DVC meeting between the cross-town rivals at WWS was no exception.

The  took the match, 28-26 and 25-22, but both games were nip-and-tuck most of the way—particularly Game 1.

The first contest featured 12 ties and three lead changes. It appeared as if the Tigers might pull away midway, leading 15-11 after a Stephanie Budlong kill—one of 10 that evening for the junior outside hitter.

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But the  (6-11, 2-5) tied the score at 17 on a tip from middle hitter Libbie Casey and a WWS hitting error.

A Casey block provided Wheaton North with its first lead since early in the game, 24-23. The Falcons held a momentary 25-24 advantage, but couldn’t close out the game.

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WWS knotted it up, 25-25, on a service error, and went ahead 26-25 on Sammy Granger’s kill. Casey tied it for the Falcons with a kill, but Tiger senior outside hitter Kate Phalen took control, slamming down consecutive kills to end the game.

The momentum shifts and see-saw battle between the two schools is nothing knew to Phalen, a three-year starter who had a match-high 15 kills.

“There’s definitely that rivalry,” said Phalen, who added six digs. “You can tell before the game we were all getting more pumped up because of that.”

WWS Coach Bill Schreier pointed out that the Tigers have a specific strategy when a game’s outcome hasn’t yet been decided despite reaching the 25-point plateau.

“Once you go past 25 points, one of the things we always talk about here is that you have to get 26,” he explained. “If you force a team to continue to chase you, at some point in time, there’s going to be a mental lapse, there’s going to be an error. There’s only so many times you can reach back to that.

“If you can get into that situation and you can get up one, it puts everything on them.”

Coach Carole Kristensen said the Falcons simply didn’t take advantage when they had things working in their favor.

“It’s unfortunate,” she said. “I look at how they scored the points and they scored a lot of points off our errors. Not earned points, and that’s very frustrating as a coach.”

The Falcons were getting blown out at one point in Game 2, falling behind 15-6. A kill from Casey, though, got the ball rolling the other way for Wheaton North, which outscored WWS 13-5 and pulled to within one point of the Tigers, 20-19.

However, a Jessica Bossman tip, followed by Lilly Kelly’s service ace and a Phalen kill, provided the Tigers with a 23-19 cushion.

“She’s really come on great,” said Schreier, referring to Phalen. “She’s done incredibly well and has added something to her game every year. I thought tonight was kind of what we’ve come to expect from Kate—a pretty consistent performance.”

Kelly chocked up five digs for the Tigers, who resume DVC action Thursday at West Aurora.

“I think we’ve been playing better,” Schreier said. “Early on we did struggle. I think that’s why we’re sitting at 3-4 in conference. But we’ve had some good moments. We had a huge victory against West Chicago about a week ago (Sept. 15) and they’ve been in and out of the top 10.

“That was nice, but we turned around and didn’t play well in the next match (vs. Glenbard North). We can’t be that inconsistent. You see it happening in matches where we have stretches where we’re inconsistent. If they can kind of correct that we’ll be in a better position.”

Casey finished with 11 kills and six blocks to lead the Falcons. Katie Thornton dished out 20 assists, Rebecca Smith added five kills, and Katie Kirschbaum netted four blocks and eight service points.

The Falcons face Naperville North on Thursday. Asked to evaluate her team’s play so far, Kristensen replied, “At this point, it better turn around real quick. We have the potential, but potential’s nothing when you don’t execute on it.”

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