Rocket repeat: Richmond-Burton tops Woodstock North, wins 2nd straight KRC championship

WOODSTOCK – It took awhile for Richmond-Burton to get going Wednesday, not taking its first lead against Woodstock North until 17-16 in the first set.

But once the Rockets got going, they couldn’t be stopped.

Richmond-Burton seized control of the opening set and ran and hid in the second for a 25-20, 25-4 victory to earn its second straight Kishwaukee River Conference championship.

The Rockets (27-1, 12-0) are going for their second straight perfect season in the KRC and have won their past 26 conference matches. For the entire year, they’ve dropped only three sets in 28 matches.

“We were feeling a lot of nerves, kind of some jitters, it’s a big game,” said senior setter Alex Hopp, who earlier this year surpassed 2,000 career assists. “But we didn’t let that affect us. We just kept pushing.”

Richmond-Burton trailed by as many as five points in the first set and took a timeout down 16-11. Coming out of the timeout, the Rockets immediately went on a run scoring the next seven points.

Sophomore outside hitter Dani Hopp had seven kills in the first set, scoring on three of the first four points during R-B’s 7-0 run. Sophomore libero Lanee Cooley had a seven-point service run with an ace, while the Rockets took their first lead on a kill by sophomore right-side hitter Zoe Freund, who also had the next point with a block.

The Rockets’ five sophomores, which also include Malorie Komar and Reagan Wisniewski, haven’t lost a conference match in two years on the team.

“It was just about staying calm,” said Dani Hopp, who had eight kills, seven digs, two aces and a block. “We were all coming into this a little nervous. They were holding me accountable and we were working together as a team. We all just have such a close connection. It’s really awesome.”

Woodstock North is always a difficult matchup, R-B coach Mike Kamholz said.

“Woodstock North has this energy that gives us a little bit of nerves,” Kamholz said. “We go out and it’s, ‘We’re going to pound the ball through the floor,’ and you just don’t play like that all the time. As soon as we got them settled down and moving the ball around, being smart with the ball, things started to switch around.”

Furlan led the Rockets with nine kills, along with six digs and two blocks. Alex Hopp (Wisconsin-Oshkosh commit) had 20 assists and three aces, Wisniewski (one block) and Freund (two blocks) had three kills apiece, and Cooley had two aces.

Furlan, who has more than 1,000 career kills and is the team’s all-time leader in aces, said this year has gone above and beyond her expectations.

“This is more than I expected,” said Furlan, who will play next year at Wright State. “I knew we were going to come in having a more mature team from last year, I knew we were going to be good, but what we’ve done this year is remarkable.”

Woodstock North (15-12, 9-3) has relied heavily on senior outside hitter Devynn Schulze, an Illinois State commit, but were unable to get her going Wednesday.

Schulze and Clara Klasek led the Thunder with three kills apiece. Gabby Schefke added seven assists and five digs and Maddie Sofie had seven digs.

“It’s happened to us a bunch this year,” said North coach Eric Schulze, Devynn’s father. “We’ve relied on Devynn’s offense throughout the season and rightfully so, but we got her trapped in the back row and couldn’t find a way to get out of that rotation. Momentum just swung heavy.

“Richmond-Burton put a lot of pressure on us from the serving line. Our serve receive broke down. We’re not very good out of system as a team because we don’t have the physicality to make those types of swings. We were scrambling trying to find a way to get a point.”

Richmond-Burton earned a No. 1 seed for the Class 2A postseason and has seven matches remaining in the regular season. The Rockets play at the Woodstock North Invitational this weekend before their last two KRC matches against Marengo and Plano.

Richmond-Burton almost certainly will reach 30 wins for the first time since the 2012 team finished a program-best 37-5 and took runner-up at the 3A state tournament.

“I feel like we wouldn’t be where we are without our seniors [Furlan and Alex Hopp],” Cooley said. “Tonight we just lifted each other up.”