Lemont’s season comes to an end with sectional finals loss to St. Laurence

BURBANK -- A packed gym, high intensity, raucous student sections and tension so thick a butter knife could cut through it in the air. No, this wasn’t the return of college basketball. It was one of the last high school volleyball games of the year in the state of Illinois.

It was the scene at St. Laurence High School as the host and top seeded Vikings took on third seeded Lemont in the sectional finals. The St. Laurence Sectional Championship was on the line, as was a spot in the super sectional round. Only one team could advance to the final eight teams left in 3A while the other’s season would come to an end.

St. Laurence overcame a pair of first set deficits and put on a dominant performance in set two to defeat Lemont 29-27, 25-17.

First set was exactly what you’d expect from two teams playing in the sectional finals. Both teams overcame deficits and battled beyond the 25 point minimum. The Vikings just had a bit more gas in the tank.

Set two, however, saw St. Laurence race off to a big lead early. While Lemont put in a comeback effort, it was too late for them to achieve victory as the Vikings punched their ticket to the final eight.

“Lemont is a great team and we knew it was going to be a battle coming into tonight,” St. Laurence coach Ellen Yopchick said. “After the first set we just talked about settling down and going back to our style of volleyball. We wanted to be aggressive in everything that we do and getting that win in the first set helped It was good to come back out and start fresh again after that, though.”

Lemont (30-8) started hot, racing out to a 3-0 lead before Kayla Birmingham kicked it into high gear for the Vikings. Behind 5-2, Birmingham’s kill kicked off a 7-1 run for the Vikings as they took the lead. That lead stretched to 12-8 before April Rice and company cut the deficit to 12-11. The Vikings quickly righted the ship and grew the lead back to 17-13.

That’s when Aubrey Martinez went into turbo mode. Her kill jump started a 6-0 run to return the lead to Lemont. From there, it became a seesaw of plays between the two as each found themselves in match point four times before the opening set was over. The opening round of battle was finally finished when a Lemont error gave the Vikings a 29-27 win.

Set two started similarly to set one. Lemont started out with a 3-0 lead only for Sophia Swiderski’s kill to start a 12-2 run to give the Vikings a 13-6 advantage. While things evened out a bit in terms of point-by-point play, that initial deficit proved too enormous to overcome for Lemont as they dropped the set 25-17 and saw their season come to a close.

St. Laurence (31-5) was led by Brimingham (10 kills, eight digs), Martinez (eight kills, four digs), Natalie Martinez (six aces, 13 digs) and Vianne Villa (20 assists). Lemont was led by Rice (five kills, four digs, nine assists), Swiderski (five kills, four digs), Fiona Tkach (five kills, four digs), Nora Miller (12 digs) and Olivia Sarno (eight assists).

The game was also the last one in the careers of six seniors for Lemont. Both Rice and Swiderski said after the game that they wouldn’t trade their experience with the program for anything.

“It’s a family,” Swiderski said. “We all love each other so much. We all bonded like crazy and we’re going to know each other the rest of our lives.”

As for the future of the program, 11 varsity players will be back next season, nine of whom will be seniors. Coach Chris Zogata expects them to be just fine.

“(The future) is always good,” she said. “I have girls that give their 100% no matter what all the time. They’re fighters and this year’s group helped next year’s group get better.”