Girls volleyball: Naperville Central sweeps Plainfield North in dominant effort

PLAINFIELD – There’s no doubt you’ve been feeling the heat the last few days.

Record-breaking temperatures were recorded throughout the area, with most outdoor events being canceled, postponed or shortened due to the extreme heat. It was fair to wonder if it’d ever cool down.

A similar feeling took place at Plainfield North’s gym Wednesday night during its girls volleyball match against Naperville Central. Unfortunately for the Tigers and fortunately for the Redhawks, all the heat came from Naperville Central.

The Hawks were dominant from the onset of action, completing run after run to earn the two-set sweep, 25-17, 25-19.

Naperville Central (1-1) used an explosive start in the first set to help set the tone early as, they led by as many as 13 before a late rally attempt by the Tigers came up short. Another outstanding start by Naperville Central saw it score the first seven points of set two. That allowed the Redhawks to cruise from there and get their first win of the season.

“I think we did a good job of weathering the storm, settling down, getting back to the basics and finding our way back by the end,” Redhawks coach Brienne Isaacson said. “It’s early (in the year), so there’s lots of highs and lows, but we’ll get more steady with more matches.”

Set one was all Redhawks virtually all set long, particularly in the early going.

Naperville Central jumped out to a 3-0 lead that quickly ballooned to an 8-2 advantage before Plainfield North coach Matthew Slechta called time out. While the bleeding was slowed, it still continued as the Redhawks stretched the advantage to 13-4 in a hurry.

While the Tigers started matching Naperville Central more frequently, the Redhawks simply couldn’t be stopped, and the advantage grew to 17-6. Plainfield North wouldn’t go down without a fight. They went on a 6-1 run to cut their deficit to 23-15 before a Naperville Central timeout. While that helped make the final score more respectable, it was too late to prevent Naperville Central from winning the set.

Set two saw the Redhawks dominate just as early and just as often.

Naperville Central was red hot and again couldn’t be cooled as it scored the first seven points to take a commanding advantage. Again, credit the Tigers for not rolling over as they went on a 7-2 run to cut the deficit to just two. Naperville Central refused to panic, though, as the Redhawks went on another strong run from there, scoring four unanswered.

Plainfield North went on its own run and looked like a totally different team in doing so. It scored eight unanswered and for the first time all night and took the lead, 15-13. Again, Central didn’t panic, and the game became more of an exchange from there. The teams battled to a series of draws with things all tied up at 19-19. Central scored the final six points to win 25-19.

Central was led by Georgia Von Lehmden with four assists and six kills, Caroline Impey with six kills, and Lyla Hope with five assists and four kills.

“We’ve been working really hard on serve-receive in practice, and I think that really showed tonight with our super aggressive serving,” senior setter Sarah Butler said. " I’m super proud that we had a moment and came back and collected ourselves.”

For Plainfield North (0-1), it wasn’t the way the Tigers wanted their season to start. There were stretches they surely wish they could have back and things they’ll want to build on moving forward. Still, they showed fight in coming back multiple times to make the contest competitive.

“We graduated seven seniors last year, and a lot of those seniors were on varsity for three or four years,” coach Matthew Slechta said. “Now we’re getting back into the groove of getting comfortable with each other. It was good to see them get back a little bit in both sets.”