St. Francis downs Lemont, Joliet Catholic defeats Rosary

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WHEATON – On a night when the Joliet Catholic volleyball team suddenly looked beatable, Kelsey Robinson appeared unstoppable.

Robinson, a 6-1 senior, slammed down 15 kills as host St. Francis easily dispatched a good Lemont (30-8) team in a Class 3A Sectional semifinal Tuesday night, 25-16, 25-14.

The Spartans (35-4) advance to the sectional championship match on Thursday against Joliet Catholic, which downed Rosary in the first match of the doubleheader at the Spyglass Athletic Center, 25-15, 25-16.

The Tennessee-bound Robinson recorded kills on five of the first six points of the match as St. Francis raced to a quick 6-0 lead against the Indians.

Lemont regrouped, however, and took advantage of some Spartan miscues to take a 10-8 lead.

“I think we definitely lost focus for a little bit,” Robinson admitted. “We just decided to take a deep breath, relax, and focus on what we needed to do.”

The Spartans quickly regained the lead with the help of some strong play in the middle from Daiva Wise and Gabe Zito.

“Our middles are coming along,” St. Francis coach Peg Kopec said. “One’s a sophomore [Wise], so she’s been growing quite a bit throughout the season.”

Wise finished with four kills in the match and Zito had three. The Spartans also benefited from four aces each from Robinson and junior Gina Madonia.

It might have been tempting for the Spartans to look past Lemont at a potential match with Joliet Catholic, but Robinson said the squad kept its focus on the task at hand Tuesday.

“We do a lot of scouting and we focus on that during practice, what we need to do to beat teams,” she said. “We have to keep one team at a time and once we beat them we focus on what’s ahead.”

What’s ahead for St. Francis is a Joliet Catholic (37-1) team that looked less dominant than usual against Rosary (19-19). The Royals had their chances to make it a competitive match, but made too many errors, particularly serving.

“I thought we could have done much better,” said Rosary senior Emily Weber, who registered six kills. “We could have jumped more on the opportunities that we were given. We weren’t as enthused as we were. We just needed to bring more heat to the game. It’s a little disappointing.”

Rosary never led in the match, though the first game was tied at 7 and the Royals trailed just 11-9 after a Lindsay Juriga kill. But Annemarie Hickey smashed a powerful kill to spark an 8-1 run to give the Angels complete control of the game and match.

“I wish we had shown a little more fight,” Rosary coach Lisa Kasper said. “I think had we shown a little bit more fight it could have been a different match.”

The Royals exposed a potential vulnerability of the Angels by scoring quite a few points on quick sets to the middle.

“We were able to put the ball down fairly easy,” Kasper noted. “We were blocking them, but then not ready for a little easy roll shot over the net.”

Hickey led Joliet Catholic with 14 kills. She and fellow outside hitter Alyssa Warren will be a handful for St. Francis to deal when the Spartans host the Sectional championship match Thursday.”

“We need to minimize our errors,” Kopec said. “And not get rattled. Everybody’s going to get their kills. Hickey’s going to get her kills. Robinson’s going to get her kills. Then what else are we going to do?”

“I think we need to play very balanced and play an all-around team game,” Robinson said. “They’re a very good team. I can’t wait to play them. It’s going to be a battle.”

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