Girls volleyball: Joliet West overcomes shaky start to down Romeoville in three sets

JOLIET – The girls volleyball game Thursday evening between Joliet West and Romeoville started well for the Spartans and poorly for the host Tigers. Yet when the final point was scored, it was the home team that was celebrating while the Spartans left with the loss.

Joliet West overcame a rough loss in the first set and an early deficit in Set 2 to take a 2-1 victory over Romeoville 21-25, 25-22, 25-20.

“I think there were just some nerves,” coach Chris Lincoln said. “It’s our first home game and first conference game of the season. We just needed to stay confident because this is pretty much a brand-new team from last year. We have a lot of youth, so there’s going to be growing pains.”

Set 1 was the definition of a game of scoring runs. The Spartans benefited from as hot a start as anyone could’ve asked for with sensational freshman Aubree Westerfield leading the way. With all cylinders firing, Romeoville jumped out to a 7-0 lead before Joliet West called timeout.

Whatever Lincoln said to the Tigers in the huddle, it worked. Former Romeoville star Eden Eyassu, who transferred to Joliet West last summer, began playing like a girl on fire. The Tigers scored four unanswered points to shave the deficit to three. Again, however, it was a game of runs as Romeoville followed with four unanswered of their own to increase the advantage to 11-4.

Freshman Lexie Grevengoed and the Tigers responded with four straight before another four straight by the Spartans made it 14-8. That was when the Tigers caught fire. They went on an 8-2 run to pull within two, forcing coach Paige Reinert to call timeout. Like Lincoln, the Spartans coach must have had the magic words as her team pulled up 21-17 before West scored three of the next four.

Romeoville responded with the same offensive effort, scoring three of four to close the set out and get the win.

Set 2 was another game of runs. Romeoville jumped out to an early 4-1 lead before the Tigers scored three of the next four to pull within one. The teams went back and forth until Romeoville led 11-9. That was when the Tigers rattled off six unanswered points to take the lead for the first time in the match at 15-11.

That was when Julia Adams and the Spartans got the ball rolling in their favor again, going on a 7-2 run to move back ahead 18-17. The two squads then resumed the seesaw battle as in the beginning, until West moved back ahead 22-20. The Spartans tied it at 22-22 before the Tigers closed it out 25-22 to force the decisive third set.

Set 3 started the exact same way as Set 1, but with the roles reversed. West scored the first five points of the final set and eight of the first nine to take an imposing advantage. A 5-2 run by Romeoville cut the deficit to four, but West maintained a steady advantage before winning 25-20.

Grevengoed finished with 11 kills, including the game-ender, while Eyassu had nine kills and two aces. Sydney Barlong had 14 digs, Adams had 15 assists and two aces.

“It’s hard to bring up that energy after losing the first set,” Eyassu said. “We just knew we had to push and fight because we trained for this moment. It was our first game in our home gym so we had to protect our house.”

Romeoville closed the third set deficit and had plenty of positives to take away from the first two. After an admittedly poor performance in their most recent tournament, Reinert was very pleased with the overall effort.

“Watching them come out strong and hard was awesome,” she said. “We have a freshman outside hitter who has been a setter her entire career pulling her weight. Our libero really covered everything, and Lianna Ortiz was swinging away at everything. I’m very proud of them for looking like a team today.”

Westerfield led the Spartans with 18 kills, while Lianna Ortiz had 14. Alexis Crowley contributed 23 digs, and Kameron Blizniak had 22 assists.