Saints march past Benet to 4A title

St. Charles East players line up in front of their students against Benet.
(Patrick Gleason/For the Sun-Times News Group)

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NORMAL -- Almost nobody saw this one coming.

St. Charles East, which started two freshmen, a sophomore, a junior and two seniors, stunned heavily-favored and senior-dominated Benet 23-25, 25-22, 25-19 to win the Class 4A girls volleyball championship Saturday at Redbird Arena.

Junior outside Caroline Niski, who led St. Charles East (38-4) with 16 kills, said she wanted to give the few seniors on the team a state title before they left.

“I don’t have words to explain it,” she said. “We knew we were the underdogs. We just came out with more heart.”

The state title was the second for St. Charles East, which also won in 2001. But the previous team dominated throughout the season, going 41-2 and not losing a game in three tournament matches.

“I told the girls that a you can have a lot of great players, but a team always wins,” St. Charles coach Jennie Kull said. “We’ve been behind so many times with so many great teams, getting behind in this match was no big deal.”

After Benet rallied from a 15-13 deficit to win Game 1 and St. Charles overcame an 18-16 deficit to win Game 2, St. Charles took an early 6-2 lead in Game 3.

Benet recovered to tie at 9-9 and the game was tied at 10, 11, 12 and 13. But consecutive blocks by Jessica Jendryk (six kills) gave Benet (40-2) a brief 15-13 lead.

St. Charles rallied on back-to-back kills by Caroline Niski (16 kills) and took a 16-15 lead, but Ariana Mankus (17 kills) answered for Benet to force a tie at 16.

St. Charles then went on a 7-0 run on two Caroline Niski kills, an ace by Laura Homann (28 assists) and a Olivia Desormey kill. Three Benet hitting errors contributed to the run.

“Four or five of those points resulted from our errors,” Benet coach Brad Baker said. “Late in games, you have to make the other team play the ball. St. Charles East just played great. Give them credit. They deserved to win.”

Baker added that St. Charles East surprised the Redwings by playing better than they expected in transition.

“They were better than what we’ve seen in their out-of-system stuff,” he said. “They sided out 75 percent in Game 3. They just got it done.”

Natalie Patzin added eight kills for Benet and Brianne Hucek had 28 assists. Freshman Maisey Mulvey, who left the match briefly with an injury, added nine digs for the Saints.

“We played well in the first game,” Homann said. “We were that close and we found confidence in ourselves to do it.”