Girls Volleyball: Gabi Staniskis’ monster match powers Benet past Naperville North to sectional title

PLAINFIELD – Gabi Staniskis’ previous best match after her move from right-side hitter to outside hitter was her first one.

But it came in a loss.

“It was St. Charles East (Sept. 7). We redeemed ourselves the next two times we played them,” said Staniskis, a Benet senior. “But this wasn’t a loss we had to come back from. And obviously playoffs is a bigger deal. You win, or you’re done.”

Bookending another best match in Benet’s biggest of the season, Staniskis made sure that the Redwings are moving on.

The 6-foot-1 Emory recruit sizzled with 14 kills, part of an overpowering Benet effort. The top-seeded Redwings avenged a regular-season loss to third-seeded Naperville North with a surprisingly one-sided 25-12, 25-17 win in Wednesday’s Class 4A Plainfield North Sectional final.

Benet (35-4), with its 10th sectional title since 2008, snapped Naperville North’s 19-match winning streak and advanced to play O’Fallon in Friday night’s supersectional in Moline. The Redwings can thank Staniskis, one of just five seniors on a young group that starts a sophomore at setter and libero, and a freshman in the middle.

“I don’t know, I just wanted this so bad,” Staniskis said. “We all wanted it so bad. I think it showed on the court. I’ve never seen this kind of passion from my teammates.”

Indeed, Benet wasted no time ensuring that this match would be a 180-degree turn from the teams’ previous meeting, a two-set Naperville North win in the Mizuno Cup championship.

The Redwings scored the first six points of the match, which started with back-to-back kills from 6-foot-4 freshman middle Lynney Tarnow and ended with an Abby Novak ace.

That advantage eventually swelled to 15-3.

Benet had 30 kills for the match with just five hitting errors.

“Benet played a great match. They’re an extremely talented team and they played pretty flawless,” Naperville North coach Jennifer Urban said. “They have a lot of offensive weapons, and they didn’t make many errors. It was hard to defend against.”

Indeed, with 6-4 middles Tarnow and Annie Eschenbach commanding attention, defenses cannot concentrate too heavily on pin hitters like Staniskis.

And she was unstoppable Wednesday.

She had five kills during a stretch of seven points that expanded Benet’s first set lead to 14-3. And she was just getting started.

“It’s hard, if you don’t focus on our middles they’re going to kill you, it’s going to be over real quick, they hit at a high percentage,” Benet coach Brad Baker said. “When you focus on them, that’s what ends up happening is what happened tonight. We always say it’s going to be someone, we just don’t know who it is. You can’t game plan for it. We’ll give it to whoever.”

While the second set was more competitive, Naperville North (35-4) leading 10-8 at one point, there was no slowing down Staniskis.

She had kills for Benet’s first two points of the set, and nine total. Staniskis had just two errors.

“I think I just got zoned in because I knew how much I wanted this. I want this more than anything,” Staniskis said. “I just kind of got on auto pilot.”

Not bad for a girl who doesn’t even play outside in club, and played sparingly for Benet last year as a junior.

“This isn’t her natural position,” Baker said. “You have to work hard at it, and she has. The last month we had specific goals for her, things she needed to work on. And she did.”

Eschenbach added five kills and Tarnow and Kirsten Krammer four for Benet, including match point. Audrey Aselson had 29 assists and Aniya Warren 18 digs.

While Benet was having its way at the net, the Redwings were making things difficult for Naperville North star Paige Lauterwasser.

The 6-foot Wyoming recruit had six kills for the match, but she never was able to get into a rhythm with her back row attacking.

“We didn’t think we could stop her, we just wanted to slow her down,” Baker said. “She’s in the top 10 of back row attackers we’ve seen in the last 10 years.”

Back-to-back kills in the second set by Simi Kapustova and a kill by Leah Norris keyed a 4-0 Huskies’ run in the second set that had them ahead 10-8.

But after a Benet timeout, the Huskies served into the net, and Tarnow followed with a hammer off the Naperville North libero’s head, sparking a 5-0 run that gave Benet the lead for good.

Sydney Kushner had 14 digs and Allison Higgs eight for Naperville North.

“I thought our girls played hard,” Urban said. “I don’t think the score was indicative of their effort or their performance.”