Girls Volleyball: Batavia’s Madelyn Hooper makes strong first impression in season-opening win over West Aurora

BATAVIA – Through one match and a series of practices, Batavia junior setter/right side hitter Madelyn Hooper is already leaving an impression on the volleyball court.

“Maddie, she is just a presence,” Bulldogs junior setter Amanda Otten said after their season-opening 25-20, 25-13 victory over West Aurora on Tuesday. “Her blocking to her hitting, she just knows where to put to the ball, she knows where to be at crucial moments.”

Hooper made her varsity debut Tuesday and finished with six kills and six blocks to help supplement the well-balanced offense Batavia hopes to sustain throughout the season. Otten led with nine kills, 13 assists and eight digs while senior outside hitter Kyra Taylor had five kills and three digs.

“I feel great, it’s so much fun,” Hooper said. “The atmosphere is so exciting and all the energy that everyone brings, it hypes you up and even if you mess up a play, everyone is just cheering you on and it’s so much fun.”

In the spring, crowd sizes were mostly limited in gyms. It’s plausible, then, that Tuesday was the largest crowd Batavia volleyball has played in front of since the pandemic began.

“We talked a little bit before about that this is the biggest atmosphere that these guys have played in two years,” Kelsay said “They’re watching the JV game and it’s like ‘There’s a lot of people here’ and I was like ‘Let’s use that as momentum, not to be nervous.’ They kept their composure. I think when things kind of got crazy on the court, we were able to kind of control the chaos on our side, I guess, so I was really impressed with that.”

Batavia (1-0) brings back a solid mix of experience and youth from the spring season and Otten is right in the middle, virtually every volley, of it all.

“I am a setter, I feel like [the position] is the quarterback of the team, but if I didn’t have my team, there’d be no way that that would happen,” Otten said.

“We have a really great mix of really great senior leaders, some talented juniors, who, they feel comfortable on the court,” Kelsay said. “That’s a big thing. We’ve got a lot juniors playing; we’ve got a mix of them and they came out today and seemed really comfortable.”

Whether it is getting the offense in motion or providing some tough defense at the net, Otten appears to have embraced that starring role.

“She’s very natural in her movements, absolutely,” Kelsay said. “One thing we talked about was her defense as well. And, hey, West Aurora, they were swinging tonight,and they were putting balls in good spots. I think even on the defensive side, [Otten] was playing good defense, getting those balls up. It was a great first win and it was great to see West Aurora again and their fight.”

West Aurora (0-1) has about nine players coming back from the spring, but is looking to replace the lost production of graduated seniors Chloey Myers and Cara Grube. The Blackhawks graduated four off the roster.

“We came out pretty good, we came out attacking the ball and playing pretty good defense,” West Aurora coach Kevin Mortlock said. “We’re still learning camaraderie and how to play with new players. We have some younger kids up on the varsity squad this year. Very promising team; we’re a very promising team.”

Freshman outside hitter Maureen Marziani-Radomski flashed with four kills, while Jazmyn Seraphin and Kaitlyn Aleshire each had two kills apiece.

“We’re learning to play together, though,” Mortlock said. “We’re learning how to talk to each other on and off the court. We’re learning how to hit around a big block. We saw that today. Batavia has got a few six foot plus people in the front row. We haven’t run into that in a little bit, so we need to hit around a big double block. Other than that, we’re making small changes...overall, I’m happy with how we played, but it’s just going back to the drawing board and making a few small tweaks.”