Girls volleyball: Fieldcrest falls in straight sets to Illinois Valley Central in 2A sectional championship

FAIRBURY — The Fieldcrest volleyball team battled to the very last point against Illinois Valley Central during Wednesday’s Class 2A Prairie Central Sectional championship match, but the Knights had their fantastic season come to a close in a 25-16, 25-22 loss to the Grey Ghosts.

“We knew what we were up against tonight, but I really feel like this was going to be any team’s match,” Fieldcrest coach Cathy Sanders said, her squad finishing the season at 29-5. “We knew what their strengths were, but they also have some weaknesses we thought we could take advantage of. On the other hand, I think they were able to take advantage of our weaknesses as well.”

IVC (35-3-1) now advances to the Maroa-Forsyth Super-Sectional against Riverton Sectional winner Pleasant Plains on Friday.

“We have traditionally started sets slower than I would like this season. For whatever reason, it takes us a little while to get going,” IVC coach Troy Webb said. “I knew that Fieldcrest was going to make a couple runs at us and we were going to have to serve well to limit their spurts. ... I mean, they came in with 29 wins for a reason.

“The biggest key tonight was being able to get a couple short runs in the middle of each set to give us a little breathing room.”

Fieldcrest held an 11-10 lead in the opening set thanks to a pair of kills each from Kaylin Rients and Allie Wiesenhofer, plus an ace by Ashlyn May. IVC then received a sideout winner from 6-foot-1 Kenna Wollard to send Ali Bainter to the line. Bainter reeled off seven consecutive points, including a pair of aces and two more kills from Wollard, to push to an 18-11 lead.

Wollard — a Purdue University recruit that is No. 3 all-time in career kills according to IHSA.org — finished with 15 kills and a block.

A pair of winning swings by Sage Geltmaker (four kills) closed out the set for the Grey Ghosts.

“They put pressure on us, and we put pressure on ourselves,” Sanders said. “We play so much better when we stay calm and have fun. I think we may have gotten caught up in the moment a few times tonight in situations where we needed to just stay confident.

“That said, I thought we played a very solid match overall. We played them as best we could. I have no complaints with how we played tonight.”

“We had particular seams that we wanted to serve in, and we knew No. 11 was a big scorer from the outside and No. 17 in the middle,” Webb said. “We wanted to take away as many of Fieldcrest’s strengths as we could. We obviously wanted to funnel the ball on offense to the left corner where we are 6-foot-1 [Wollard] and 6-foot-2 [Mairen Mannon].

The second set started much like the first, with the Knights holding a 10-8 advantage. But a pair of hitting errors, then a kill and ace by Mannon (four kills) made it 13-10. A kill by the Knights’ Zoey Dye and a trio of IVC hitting errors close the gap to 17-16.

But the Knights were then guilty of three hitting errors and a lift before two kills by Mannon pushed things to 24-18.

The Knights held off four match points on a trio of kills by Rients before a Wollard swing saw the ball fall untouched in the middle of the Knights defense.

Rients led Fieldcrest’s offense with nine kills, with Wiesenhofer (six digs) adding four and Kaitlyn White three. White had 10 assists and Macy Gochanour eight, while libero Carolyn Megow posted four points and six digs.

“We stayed fighting right up until the final point,” Sanders said. “We made a number of key plays throughout the match that had the girls saying to themselves, ‘Hey, we can do this.’ I really feel like if we played them again, it could be a different outcome, but tonight they were the better team.

“Give IVC credit. They went to their go-to players at key times, and that is what good teams do.”