Coach Sly: Still a great year for Saints volleyball

It’s not going to be quite the ending the St. Charles East girls volleyball team had in mind but it’s still been an awesome season for coach Kull and her Fighting Saints.

What can you say when a team beats you four times in a season other than recognize that Benet is a superior team? That’s saying something because this East squad was awfully good.

Coach Sly was glad to see East keep its loss in perspective and not let it sap all the joy from the weekend at Redbird Arena. The Saints have been fortunate enough to go all the way a couple times during the Kull era, and that’s the ultimate, but simply finishing your season at Redbird Arena means it’s been a fabulous season that will be remembered for a long time.

Speaking of remembered for a hard time, it’s crazy to think about Saints volleyball without a Niski front-and-center, now that Meghan’s ready to join her big sis in the college volleyball ranks. East loses some other really nice pieces off this team, but when you return a setter like Barry and have a track record like East’s, you figure the defending UEC River champs won’t go sliding into an abyss any time soon.

You can’t really call Benet beating East much of a surprise, but Sly was a little taken aback to see St. Francis go down in 3A, especially as hard as the Spartans fell to Mater Dei.

A lot of people up here consider that inevitable St. Francis-Joliet Catholic sectional final match a de facto state championship game in 3A, and we found out Friday that’s just not the case.

People around here can be a bit Chicago-centric. There are some fine teams downstate, too. Just ask the Spartans.