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MAPLE PARK – Kaneland has made it a habit to play three sets in volleyball games this season.
It certainly didn’t look like the Knights were destined for another one during Thursday’s Interstate Eight Conference game against Sycamore in Maple Park.
But once again, the Knights needed to go the distance, holding off the Spartans. 25-8, 23-25, 25-19.
“We started to give them hope and anytime you give a team an opportunity that they can beat you they’re going to pick up every little ball,” Knights coach Cyndi Violett said. “That’s the mental focus, the mental toughness we’re working on. We’ve got the skill. We’ve got the talent. And they’re working together, but sometimes we can’t get out of the funk of the passing. So there are some things we need to work on for the playoffs.”
Kaneland (19-8, 7-2) scored the first nine points of the first set.
Knights junior Emma Gatz contributed a pair of aces during an 8-0 run after the Spartans finally scored a pair to turn a 10-2 set into an 18-2 one.
“We had a good crowd tonight and were just looking for their energy to keep pushing us,” she said. “I know I can’t rely on myself. I have to rely on my teammates and talk to them to keep pushing because I know they want it and it’s going to push me 10 times harder.”
That early push was seemingly erased in a second set that featured eight ties.
Sycamore (8-17, 3-6) took advantage of a pair of hitting errors from the Knights to break a 22-22 tie and pull ahead 24-22. A kill from Kaneland senior Morgan Beam cut that lead to 24-23, but senior Kylie Walsh finished the hosts off, spinning a ball over the net.
“I’m very proud of them for coming back after losing the first set 25-8,” Spartans coach Jennifer Charles said. “That was a gut punch. What helped was (junior) Lily Jones had four or five good serves and three or four of them were aces. (Senior) Kylie Walsh put some balls down and Khiara Thomas was working hard. She was under the weather but had two or three key blocks and a huge kill off an overpass that sparked us. We did the little bitty things through the the second set, but by the third set we kind of ran of out of gas. And I thought Kaneland did a nice job of making us work. It’s always nice to play Kaneland. It’s competitive, a nice atmosphere and great fans.”
Kaneland improved to 11-4 in matches decided in three sets, but once again it was far from easy.
After the Knights won a long volley that Beam finished with a kill to put them up 18-11, the Spartans rattled off five straight points which led to Violett calling a timeout.
“We go through this almost every game,” Knights senior Kayli Loonam said. “But I’ve also seen us come back when we’re down 10 so I believe our team can do it, I just don’t wasn’t to do it. I want to win and play hard and win fast, but I believe in my team and that we can always crawl out of whatever it is.”
Beam, Loonam and fellow seniors Audrey Peters and Olivia d’Escoto, juniors Grace Remsen and Gatz, and sophomore Haley Swim were among the key players who ensured that it wasn’t just a player or two inflicting point-scoring pain for the Knights.
“There’s never one person to blame for the loss or (take credit for) the win, that’s the six players on the court who fight hard to win and that is all of us together,” Loonam said. “We couldn’t have down it without a libero or my passer or my middle so the win is all of us together and definitely not just one of us.”
The Knights defeated the Spartans in two sets when they played in the West Aurora tournament in early September. They won in three sets at Sycamore earlier this month.
“I was shocked myself to come in and win 25-8 and then go into a third set,” Loonam said. “It was definitely a shocker because I believe in my team and how we play so it was shocker for sure.
Sycamore graduated 11 seniors and is now without outside hitter Ava Carpenter who suffered an injury last week. Her availability for the post-season is unknown, but the Spartans remain hopeful for her return.
“As a senior and four-year starter she is still keeping a presence being vocal on the sidelines,” Charles said. “As a captain she’s doing the best as she can making a bad situation as positive as possible by still being a vocal leader.”
Charles will head to Macomb tomorrow where is going into the Western Illinois University Hall of Fame. She’s the school’s all-time digs leader, etching her name in the program’s record book from 2003-2006.