Girls volleyball: St. Viator goes down swinging to complete best-ever season
NORMAL - It came as no surprise to St. Viator coach Charlie Curtin that his Lions spent more time on the Redbird Arena court than any of the 16 schools competing in the four classes of the high school girls volleyball state tournament this weekend.
A day after setting a record for the most combined points in a state match, St. Viator once again found itself in a long battle for third place in Class 3A Saturday against Normal U-High.
For the second straight day, St. Viator came up on the short end of a three-setter, this time 25-21, 19-25, 25-19. The Lions held a 5-point lead in the deciding third set before it slipped away.
"That's kind of been our M.O. all year," Curtin said. "We're always in three-set matches. We have meltdowns every once in awhile but they come back and fight and continue to play to the end."
Similar to Friday's semifinal loss to Resurrection, the Lions were just a few key points away from going 2-0 at state instead of 0-2.
Instead, St. Viator (29-13) settled for fourth place, still the best finish in school history and its first state trophy.
"It's absolutely unbelievable," Curtin said. "It hasn't come to fruition in the past but this year the girls clicked, they worked hard in the off-season, all year. Just great friends on the court and great volleyball players. I'm so proud of them. It is definitely going to put us on the map in volleyball."
Among the Lions' 11 seniors, Kendall Claffey (8 kills), Catherine Hickey (15 kills), Michaela Mueller (29 assists) and Caroline Carlton (3 kills) all came up with big games Saturday.
They said their friendship off the court helped them play better on it.
"Honestly I don't think it's soaked in yet," Claffey said. "We've come so far. No one in the beginning of the season thought this would ever happen so we're just unbelievably proud to bring this home."
The teams battled through 18 ties and lead changes in the opening set. The final one came at 17-17 before Normal U-High (30-11) scored 6 straight - a late, game-breaking run which happened again in the third set.
St. Viator junior Kate Nottoli finally stopped the surge with a swing in the middle, one of her 6 kills in the match. Hickey followed with a kill but it was too big of a hole to dig out of, and Addy Loeffler slammed back a free ball to give U-High the opening set.
St. Viator answered with a run early in the second set, building its biggest lead at 14-5 on senior Rebecca Wolf's ace. The Pioneers got as close as 16-13 but Viator held strong down the stretch, with consecutive kills by Hickey getting to set point which U-High hit out.
That put the Lions right where they are used to, in a third set, and they once again got off to a good start up 11-6 when Hickey and Nottoli combined for a block.
U-High fought back to a 17-17 tie. With Jessica McDowell serving, the Lions made 5 errors during McDowell's 7-point run for a 24-17 U-High lead.
Taylor Pfaller momentarily kept the Lions alive with an ace before Illyana Lin's kill ended the match.
"We kind of let it get in our head," Mueller said of the match-deciding run.
"They played extremely scrappy defense," Curtin said of U-High. "They got a lot of one-arm digs running off the court and were able to capitalize on it. We made a couple mistakes and it compounded and it was hard for us to get our heads back in the game and focus on what we need to do."
Hickey led both teams with her 15 kills on 61 swings; she had 63 attempts on Friday and finished the season with 562 kills despite being the clear focal point for opponents like the Pioneers.
"Ultimately we wanted touches at the net," Normal U-High coach Mike Bolhuis said. "We were trying to make her job as difficult as possible. We did a good job keeping the pressure on her."
When asked what made this St. Viator team unique from past ones, Curtin quickly cited the "love and passion" his players have for the game.
That made the difference this year - and could for future teams as well.
"It sets a great example for the girls in the program and the girls who are going to be in the program in the future," Hickey said.
"All of them really enjoy playing volleyball," Curtin said. "They like coming to practice. It's never a struggle. It's never fighting to be there. They want to get better. They want to work hard on a daily basis. That makes it easy on the coaching staff. Many times we'll want to be done with practice and the girls will want to stay 15 or 20 minutes and get extra reps. It's a testament to who these people really are. They have really set the bar high."