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Grayslake North takes down Hampshire
Updated: October 6, 2011 9:15PM
For two teams that have had little to get excited about this season, Grayslake North and Hampshire sure had a thrilling battle on Thursday night. The visiting Knights fought off two game points in Game 1 and went on to win the Fox Valley Fox Division match 28-26, 25-21. There were nine lead changes and 11 ties in the contest. Grayslake is now 8-18, 4-4. The four conference wins sets a school record for the fifth year varsity program.
“Volleyball is a game of momentum and it was a struggle to keep it on our side,” said Grayslake coach Nikki Kirchway. “But we found a way to come up with key plays at key moments and push through for the win.”
None of those were bigger than than ones that came at the end of the first game. Grayslake had squandered a 20-15 lead and allowed Hampshire to pull even at 23-23. Three serves later an unforced error by the Knights gave Hampshire a 25-24 lead. However, Hampshire (6-19, 1-7) could not cash in and a serve into the net knotted the game again at 25-25. Grayslake again faced a game point after the the Whip - Purs Michelle Dumloulin scored on a block kill to put Hampshire ahead again 26-25. This time the Knights rallied with avengance. A kill by Kelsey Klausner even the game at 26-26. The Knights then pulled ahead 27-26 on an ace from Jenni Babula before Joanna Guhl finished it off with a kill.
“It was so important to comeback and get that win in game one,” said Kirchway. “I’m not sure if we would have been able to recover if we would have let that one slip away.”
Grayslake held a narrow lead through most of the early part of game two. Hamphire tied the score briefly at 13-13, but the Knights went on a 6-0 run to take control. Klausner and Guhl each had kills during the key stretch, while Hampshire committed three costy errors. The Whip-Purs were plagued by 12 unforced errors in game two and a total of 22 in the match..
That’s the frustrating part of being so young and inexperienced,” said Hampshire coach Karen Whitehouse. “There are times when we show so much potential and then we turnaround and make crucial mistakes at critical times. But that’s all a part of the growing process. The talent is there. Now we just have to put it all together and that’s going to come. They did a good job of taking us out of our game with a lot of tipping and rolling. We played timid at times and just didn’t swing away enough.”
Guhl had a game-high 10 kills for Grayslake. Katie McCarthy had a stellar night with five kills, 13 digs, and three aces. Hampshire was led by Jennifer Dumloulin with seven kills. Kelly added a game high 17 digs for the Whip-Purs.
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