Girls Volleyball: Freshman Lynney Tarnow, Benet end Oswego East’s record-setting season, move into sectional final

PLAINFIELD – Lynney Tarnow does not have firsthand knowledge of how Benet’s season ended last year.

She was, after all, only in eighth grade.

But the 6-foot-4-inch freshman middle was determined Monday to not let history repeat itself.

“I knew that last year our season ended here. We came in with a lot of motivation,” Tarnow said. “My seniors, I want to take them to state. We want to go all the way.”

Tarnow may have been the youngest girl on the court Monday, but she had a towering presence. She had a match-high nine kills in just 11 attempts, and top-seeded Benet ended fourth-seeded Oswego East’s record-setting season with a 25-15, 25-18 win in the Class 4A Plainfield North Sectional semifinal.

Benet (34-4) ended the first set on a 9-1 run. Then the Redwings ran out to a commanding 17-6 lead in the second.

“I think we just knew that we had to start strong and never underestimate anybody,” Tarnow said. “We live by that motto and work as a team. Be loud and be positive.”

Kirsten Krammer added five kills, including match point, and the ace at set point in the first, Gabi Staniskis four kills, Audrey Aselson 22 assists and nine digs and Aniya Warren eight digs for Benet, which advanced to face third-seeded Naperville North in Wednesday’s sectional final. The Huskies beat the Redwings in the Scholastic Cup tournament championship Oct. 8.

Tarnow had six of her nine kills in the first set as Benet established its middles against a smaller opponent early and often. Tarnow had back-to-back kills to give Benet the lead for good in the first, 9-7, and had two more kills during its big closing run.

Nothing new there.

“She’s been pretty good all season,” Benet coach Brad Baker said. “She has a bright future. The future might be now, though. She’s playing really well.”

Baker’s Redwings have the luxury of two 6-foot-4 middles with Tarnow and Annie Eschenbach, a Xavier recruit. He had a simple explanation for why Tarnow got the ball so often early, and how best to maximize two talents like those.

“Whoever is hot. You start off hot, you’re probably going to get the ball. It’s not rocket science,” Baker said. “Just set them high and get the ball over people. You have to use what your strengths are.”

Even when Tarnow wasn’t putting points away, her presence had an affect.

Oswego East’s tallest starter is 5-foot-10 Vivian Campbell, and the Wolves (27-7) recognized that they would need to emphasize their blocking against a much taller opponent. But it may have taken them out of their game. The Wolves were called for eight net violations in a match that saw 12 total net violations, and had a number of hits over big blocks sail long.

“We dealt with some calls that I think were questionable for us and it kind of broke down,” Oswego East coach Dina Beamon said. “We’ve been working a lot on blocking and we talked about in our huddle that we were overblocking. We do well keeping it simple and this time we didn’t. We felt that we had to get even bigger because they were so big instead of just playing us. We’re not the biggest team but it’s worked for us. Today we were a little too big.”

Still, the Wolves did not go down without a fight. Trailing 17-6 in the second set, they got to within 21-15 on back-to-back kills by Cailyn Smiley. A Campbell kill closed the Wolves to within 23-18 before a service error and Krammer’s kill ended it.

“It’s our last year, could have possibly been our last match. I didn’t want us to end the season as we did,” Campbell said. “I was going to fight to the end.”

“That’s us. We’re fighters,” Beamon said. “We’re going to fight to the end.”

Campbell is one of nine seniors that left quite a legacy at Oswego East.

The Wolves shattered the program record for wins they set last season with 27, and won the program’s first conference and regional titles under second-year coach Beamon.

“They are irreplaceable,” Beamon said. “To have a squad this deep and this talented, it doesn’t happen very often. The levels coming up have big shoes to fill. I’ll miss them.”