The VolleyBlog: 2012

Sunday, November 18, 2012

St. Charles North Regional Champions

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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

North Stars defeat Batavia

St. Charles North’s blockers

What they did: The North Stars keep proving they’re for real this season, and their blocking game against Batavia on Tuesday showed another solid side of their game. Alex Stone and Emily Carroll had four and a half blocks each, while Taylor Krage added three and a half.

Kane County Chronicle

St. Charles North nips Batavia

By Kevin McGavin Daily Herald

The opening night of the girls volleyball season was a harbinger of the what is expected to be a common theme in the Upstate Eight River Division.

“A dogfight,” acting St. Charles North coach Doug Foster said after the North Stars held off a surging Batavia squad by identical scores of 25-23 and 25-23 Tuesday evening in St. Charles.

Renee Rhoades’ serve fell innocuously to the floor, only inches from the back line, as the North Stars earned the final point after squandering an 11-point second-game lead against Batavia in the schools’ league opener.

“(The back-row players) thought (the serve) was going long,” Batavia coach Lori Trippi-Payne said. “You have to play that ball.” St. Charles North (9-2, 1-0) appeared to be in command in the second game after Alex Busch, capitalizing on several Batavia mistakes, had an 8-point service run — highlighted by a pair of aces — to give the North Stars the first of four double-digit leads in the nightcap.

Batavia captain Heather Meyer, who led both teams with 8 kills, had three of her winners in a 5-point sequence to launch the Bulldogs’ comeback. Slowly but inexorably, Batavia (9-6, 0-1) clawed its way back into the second game. Kristin Koncelik had a kill to cap a 12-4 Batavia run that sliced the North Stars’ cushion to 21-18. Batavia senior Anysa Ocon had back-to-back points — a kill and block, respectively — to bring Batavia within two.

Taylor Krage maintained the North Stars’ 2-point spread at 23-21, only to have Batavia score consecutive points to knot the game for the first time since it was 1-1. But St. Charles North freshman Claire Anderson brought her team to match point with a kill, and Rhoades’ service from well beyond the North Stars’ end line perfectly split two defenders for the clinching point.

“It was kind of a little bit of a letdown,” Krage said of North allowing Batavia back into the second game. “I felt like both teams played a great match.”

Batavia appeared dead in the water after its sluggish second-game start. “We underestimated them at the start of the match,” Ocon said. “They served us really tough the whole match. I think we played great defense (to accelerate the second-game comeback).” Briahna Havis’ serving prowess powered Batavia to an early 5-2 lead in the opening game, but St. Charles North made short order of the Bulldogs’ largest lead of the night.

With its athletic front line controlling the tempo at the net and setter Emily Belz providing the necessary floor leadership, St. Charles North had Rhoades’ opening ace of the match culminate an 11-3 run that resulted in a 13-8 lead.

“You have to give St. Charles North credit,” Trippi-Payne said. “They were blocking everything.”

St. Charles North was able to maintain first-game cushion, only to see Batavia use a venomous strike back with the North Stars on the cusp of victory.

Trailing 24-20, Ocon staved off one game point for Batavia; a St. Charles North hitting error and violation brought the Bulldogs within one of the equivalent of volleyball overtime. But Belz had other ideas; the North Stars’ senior leader deftly landed a two-hand short volley from the front row into an empty space in the Bulldogs’ defense to seal the first-game win. “It was a really intense point,” Belz said. “I didn’t want them to have all the momentum going into the second game. Our team chemistry really kicked in.”

“I thought (Belz) played a great match,” Trippi-Payne said.

Belz had 16 assists to lead St. Charles North, while Batavia setter Audrey Faulhaber had a match-high 19 assists to augment 6 digs and 2 blocks.

“A bunch of heart on that team,” Foster said of Batavia.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

North Volleyball News

St. Charles North defeats Bartlett 25-6, 25-17
August 23. 2012

SCN stats: T. Krage 6 kills and 4 blocks; Grauzinis 5 kills; Stone, 3 kills, 3 blocks; Carroll 3 kills; Wohlert 9-point service and 3 aces.

St. Charles North girls volleyball falls in semis of Plainfield North tournament
By JAY SCHWAB - jschwab@shawmedia.com
Kane County Chronicle August 26. 2012

PLAINFIELD – The St. Charles North girls volleyball team picked up its first two losses Saturday, but not before extending its hot start to the season at the Plainfield North Invite.

After winning its first two matches of the tournament on Friday, the North Stars ran the table in pool play by defeating Jones Prep on Saturday morning. That win advanced North to the semifinals of the 16-team tournament before the North Stars fell to powerhouses Providence and Marian Catholic.

Despite the two defeats, North senior libero Alex Busch is happy with her team's 5-2 overall record and fourth-place showing in the tournament.

"It was a big deal for us," Busch said. "We were really excited to get to that final four stage of the tournament."

In the third-place match against Marian, North played a sluggish Game 1, falling 25-13, but was in solid position in the second game, taking three, late, one-point leads, the last of which at 21-20.

But Spartans standout Amber Clay notched kills on two of the next three points and a net violation wiped away a would-be North kill as Marian scored the final five points to win the match.

North Stars coach Lindsey Hawkins said she learned a lot from the two-day tournament – most of it encouraging – and came away especially impressed by the play of middle blocker Emily Carroll.

"Emily Carroll was our big surprise this weekend," Hawkins said. "She really stepped it up. I was amazed at the things that she did for this team this weekend. She's only a sophomore, and I'm really looking for her to just kind of take over the net."

Outside hitter Taylor Krage remained a focal point of North's attack, and Busch likes the way North's defense is coming together.

"We work really, really hard on defense and serve-receive in practice, and to see it transforming into games, that's awesome, because that is our biggest strength right now," Busch said.

The tournament might be one of the final looks Hawkins has at the North Stars – at least from the bench – for a while. Hawkins plans to take a maternity leave after the anticipated birth of a baby boy in the next week or two.

"It's going to be a tough transition but we kind of have already started to work our way into that so it's not [as hard] when she does leave," Busch said, referring to North assistants taking a larger role in practice.
The impending arrival has naturally become a hot topic among the North Stars.

"The girls keep joking that I'm going to have the baby tonight so if we we had played one more third game, I might have [delivered] the baby," Hawkins joked.

Elsewhere in the tournament, Batavia advanced to the championship match of the bronze bracket, where the Bulldogs fells to Lincoln-Way North, 15-25, 25-22, 25-20. Batavia finished the tournament with a 2-3 mark to move to 4-3 overall on the season.

Heather Meyer (35 kills), Kristen Koncelik (32 kills, seven blocks), Audrey Faulhaber (87 assists), Anysa Ocon (29 digs, 23 kills) and Jessica Hartmann (41 digs) led the way for Batavia, which beat Bolingbrook for the second time this season in the bronze bracket semifinal, 25-18, 18-25, 25-20.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

North Stars Varsity!

North Stars 2012 Varsity Roster

Mean faces! Emily is back row, far left.

Emily is on the bottom right.

Emily on the left, third from the bottom.

The sky's the limit for this team. Best of luck this season.

SCN 2012 Schedule:

Date	Day	Event	H/A	Time	Location
8/21/2012	Tue	vs. York	H	6:00 PM	Main Gym
8/23/2012	Thu	vs. Bartlett	H	5:30 PM	Main Gym
8/24/2012	Fri	vs. Plainfield Invite	A	4:30 PM	Plainfield North HS
8/25/2012	Sat	vs. Plainfield Invite	A	8:30 AM	Plainfield North HS
8/28/2012	Tue	vs. Addison Trail	A	5:00 PM	Addison Trail
8/30/2012	Thu	vs. South Elgin	A	5:30 PM	South Elgin
9/4/2012	Tue	vs. Batavia	H	5:30 PM	Main Gym
9/6/2012	Thu	vs. Benet Acedemy	H	6:00 PM	Main Gym
9/11/2012	Tue	vs. St. Charles East	A	5:30 PM	St. Charles East
9/12/2012	Wed	vs. Wheaton Warrenville Invite	A	5:00 PM	Main Gym
9/15/2012	Sat	vs. Wheaton Warrenville Invite	A	8:00 AM	Main Gym
9/18/2012	Tue	vs. Geneva	H	5:30 PM	Main Gym
9/20/2012	Thu	vs. East Aurora	A	5:30 PM	East Aurora
9/25/2012	Tue	vs. Elgin	H	5:30 PM	Elgin
9/27/2012	Thu	vs. Waubonsie Valley	H	5:30 PM	Main Gym
10/2/2012	Tue	vs. Larkin	A	5:30 AM	Larkin
10/6/2012	Sat	vs. Schaumburg Saxon Invite	A	8:30 AM	Main Gym
10/12/2012	Fri	vs. Minooka Invite	A	5:00 PM	Minooka
10/13/2012	Sat	vs. Minooka Invite	A	9:00 AM	Minooka
10/16/2012	Tue	vs. Streamwood	H	5:30 PM	Main Gym
* 10/23/2012	Tue	vs. Regionals	TBA	5:30 PM
* 10/25/2012	Thu	vs. TBA	H	6:00 PM	Main Gym
* 10/27/2012	Sat	vs. TBA	H	TBA	Main Gym
* 10/30/2012	Tue	vs. TBA	H	TBA	Main Gym
* 11/1/2012	Thu	vs. TBA	H	TBA	Main Gym
* 11/3/2012	Sat	vs. TBA	H	TBA	Main Gym
* 11/9/2012	Fri	vs. TBA	H	TBA	Main Gym
* 11/10/2012	Sat	vs. TBA	H	TBA	Main Gym