Elgin can't hang with IC

Updated: March 22, 2011 5:18PM

Although Elgin High School's volleyball team has found victory difficult to achieve all season long, emotions still ran high on senior night against Immaculate Conception.

"It was the last time we played on our home court, so it's filled with emotion," said senior captain Heather Gawaluck. "Everyone was emotional in the locker room before coming out. People started crying because it was our last home match."

Some familiar problems still combined with IC's hitting to finish the Maroons 25-12, 25-18 as they fell to 3-32 on the year in the non-conference contest.

The match took on a familiar look for the Maroons, who have played numerous opponents close for half or two-thirds of a set before giving up a long run of points.

"The other team gets on a run, our serve receive struggles for a server or two, and that's been the story," Maroons coach Nick Bumbales said. "It's been difficult for them because they haven't been put in a lot of positive situations where they expect to win and it's difficult to come back then."

Both sets followed that scenario Thursday as Elgin forged a 9-9 tie with Bri Borvan's kill, then saw IC score 10 of the next 11 points to put it out of reach. Seven of the points in the run resulted from Maroons mistakes.

In the second set, Elgin owned an 18-17 lead after Gawaluck's kill and an IC out-of-bounds hit. Bri Hamilton, Elgin's 6-foot middle blocker, had five of her team-high six kills on the night during that start to the second set.

However, IC then ran off eight straight points to improve to 19-11 on the year, and even two Elgin timeouts couldn't break the momentum.

Gawaluck registered 15 assists, two digs and a kill, Bovan, Amanda Haugan and Meghan Chamberlain two kills each and Rachel Roth two kills and five digs. The Maroons also had three digs and an ace from Kasandra Gavina.

IC had 10 kills from Colleen Manion and 20 assists by Kim Martino.

"Our passing and communication need work, then our confidence started to go and we get worse and worse," Gawaluck said. "We still have a few more practices before regional and I think we can do it."

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.