Volleyball: MCC ready to make a run to NJCAA Division II National Championships

Throughout the fall and winter, McHenry County College’s volleyball players continued to go to work.

There were no matches because the COVID-19 pandemic had shut down sports, but the Scots kept working, determined that when and if they had a season, they would be prepared to squeeze every ounce out of it that they could.

“It has been a long, drawn-out season,” outside hitter Issy Nick said. “It was more mentally draining, more than physically. It was extremely hard.

“We practiced from the summer until now. We were just ready to go. We really just put in such hard work, everyone. We’ve just shown up and came to play.”

MCC (13-1) plays its first Region IV District A match at 6 p.m. Wednesday against the winner of Monday’s match between South Suburban and Highland. If the Scots win, they host Friday’s District A championship at 6 p.m.

Two wins and the Scots will have a berth in the 16-team field for the NJCAA Division II National Volleyball Championships in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on April 13-15. MCC finished seventh in the 2019 national tournament.

“We have been practicing since August and haven’t had any breaks,” MCC setter Hannah Baudin said. “We’ve just been working on getting better as a team and working with each other to grow stronger. When we heard we got to play (in February), we just decided to put everything out there because we missed playing so much. We’ve been waiting so long to play.”

The Scots have lost only six sets in the season, three of those coming in a 3-2 loss to Parkland College in Champaign on March 14. Parkland was ranked No. 1 in NJCAA Division II at that point and the fifth set was decided 15-13.

“Larry Bird probably said it best when he said, ‘The harder I work, the luckier I get,’ " Scots coach Kyle McCall said. “We practice really well and we compete extremely well. You can’t really ask for much more.

“With those players we have back who got a lot of playing time in 2019 and all the training we’ve been able to do, those are ingredients for success.”

Nick (396), Courtney Knutson (242) and Gaby Wilson (213) lead the team in kills. All were part of the 2019 team that made a strong postseason run. Baudin leads with 401 assists and has taken over all the setting since Lilli Leggett, another returner from 2019, was kept out of the lineup with an ankle injury. McCall was running a two-setter system until Leggett was injured.

Knutson was just selected as NJCAA and American Volleyball Coaches Association Player of the Week.

Nick and Leggett were teammates at Marian Central. Nick plans on returning for another season in the fall since NJCAA will not count this year against eligibility because of the pandemic.

All the extra months of practice have made a difference.

“It has, 100%,” Nick said. “We have so many different options we can use right now. It’s exciting. I think we can take it all the way. I have no doubt in my mind that we will be successful. We need to come to the gym 100% focused, starting off with our match on Wednesday.”

Baudin agrees.

“We’ve worked so hard and trained so hard to get to nationals and try and win this,” Baudin said. “Everyone on the team is wanting to do that.”

McCall feels having assistant coaches Shari Mayner and Jimmy Neill together for their eight years has been crucial to the program reaching this point.

Along with Nick, Leggett and Baudin, Huntley’s Bridget Bethke and Arianna Torres, Crystal Lake South’s Kelly Carlson and Crystal Lake Central’s Lily Penza are the Scots’ other local players.

“With some solid recruiting and some really talented local players deciding that they wanted to stay close to home and go to MCC for their education and felt the volleyball program was the best fit for them,” McCall said. “That’s really the ingredients.

“Issy Nick has been phenomenal. The new kids, Hannah and Lily Penza and Kelly Carlson, it’s like an all-star team of talented kids who decided ‘I want to stay close to home’ and MCC has a legit program.”

McCall thinks this is the group to take the next step at MCC.

“A lot of teams have been giving us their best and that is a privilege for us to get every team’s best effort,” McCall said. “We’ve been pretty good. This team is in a position to do some stuff that hasn’t been done at MCC before.”