Girls volleyball: Lincoln-Way West drops season opener to St. Laurence

NEW LENOX – Early season matches tend to show a team what they need to work on.

One thing is for certain after Lincoln-Way West’s season-opening 25-23, 25-20 loss to St. Laurence. The Warriors will be working on their serves.

Lincoln-Way West was guilty of nine service errors in the opening set. The Warriors did clean up that aspect of their game in the second set, but fell victim to St. Laurence’s Wisconsin-Green Bay recruit Kayla Birmingham.

Birmingham was a threat from everywhere, and she had three back-row kills en route to a match-high 13 kills.

Even so, Lincoln-Way West was able to stay right with the Vikings throughout the match behind the two-pronged attack of Drake University recruit Caroline Smith and fellow senior co-captain Elly Decker. Both Smith and Decker finished with six kills to lead the Warriors. Lily Goyer added four kills.

“Our outsides were playing well,” Lincoln-Way West coach Kendall Villa said. “But we need everyone to come ready to play every game. There are no easy games on our schedule. We aren’t going to be able to just show up and win.

“We have to come out with some fire. These girls are such nice girls off the court, but we need to have more fire once we get on the court. We also need to communicate better and come out and play with a sense of urgency.”

Despite having several serves go long out of bounds in the first set, the Warriors played well enough to hold a 23-20 lead after a kill by Smith. Unfortunately for West, St. Laurence called timeout and scored the final five points of the set, including a back-row kill from Birmingham.

The Warriors fell behind 5-2 early in the second set but rallied to tie it at 6 before a Birmingham kill and an ace by Maria Chinchillas gave the Vikings an 8-6 lead. That lead stretched to 11-7 on an ace by Madison Donovan. West answered with a kill and a block by Decker and an ace by Laney Tuttle to close to within 11-10. The Warriors got to within 17-16 later in the set, but could get no closer as St. Laurence put the match away, outscoring the Warriors 9-4, including four Birmingham kills.

“Our serving was definitely our downfall in the first set,” Villa said. “You just can’t give a team like St. Laurence, or any team, really, that many free points. We are going to work a lot on tightening up our serve. We need to work on both our serving and our serve receive.

“This team has all the talent in the world. We’re still trying to figure out who works well with each other, and that’s what the early part of the season is for. It’s time for us to not be so nice on the court and to go out there and get a little sassy. We have put together a pretty tough schedule early in the season. Thursday, we play Lyons, and Saturday, we are at the Plainfield North Tournament and have Oak Park-River Forest in our pool. We want to play these tough matches so we can figure out where we need to get better.”