Smith powers Cary-Grove to win

Updated: March 22, 2011 4:18PM

You have to be pretty tough to grow up with a father whose family and friends call "Bubba" and three sisters who are all pretty good athletes in their own right.

"He's real tough,' said Cary-Grove's Colleen Smith about her father, who has been a physical education teacher and football coach at Stevenson for the past 29 years. "He always expects a lot of us."

You also have to be pretty tough to wait three years to set your high school team, playing whenever and wherever your team needs you until it's your turn.

"She's been waiting three years for this," Cary-Grove coach Patty Langanis said. "When you have to wait so long, you appreciate it. She has worked hard to get here, and she doesn't take it for granted."

Smith and her teammates are taking nothing for granted, and it showed Saturday at the Prairie Ridge invitational where No. 1 Cary-Grove (13-0) did not drop a set and capped its perfect day with a 25-21, 25-19 victory over the hosts.

"Everybody played so amazingly today," said Smith, who finished third on the team in blocks and digs and second in assists while playing predominately rightside hitter for the Trojans last season when they won the Class 4A title.

"Everything was clicking," she added. "Our serving was unbelievable, we blocked really well. We are so much stronger than last year. We work so hard everyday. Practice is so intense."

Smith, who will set at Indiana next fall, made sure she found every one of her teammates during their final match of the day against Prairie Ridge (6-4), which won its first four matches without dropping a set.

"I love setting," Smith said. "I can be so creative. I have so many options. Our middles were huge today with Ashley (Rosch) and Mallory (Wilczynski) and the outsides were great with Kelly (Lamberti), Allison (Whimpey) and Melanie (Jereb)."

Smith also came up big in the Trojans' match with No. 6 St. Charles East earlier in the day, contributing 21 assists, five kills and three aces in a 25-14, 25-19 victory. She had back-to-back aces to help Cary-Grove overcome a 2-0 deficit in the first game and added three kills in the second.

"I like being offensive, too," Smith said.

Lamberti finished with nine kills, Whimpey added eight kills and three aces and Rosch had four kills and a block for the Trojans against the Saints. Meghan Niski had six kills for St. Charles East (12-3), which finished 2-3 on the day.

The Saints squandered a 7-1 lead in the third game of a 19-25, 25-23, 16-14 loss to Fenwick, and needed three sets to overcome a Barrington team they beat handily Thursday and was without its top player, 6-foot-2 setter/outside hitter Madison Lang (shoulder).

"We had a bad start to the day," St. Charles East coach Jennie Kull said. "I felt it coming. Our ball control wasn't there all day. I am pleased the girls played as hard as they did against Cary-Grove. Cary-Grove is a phenomenal team.

"But I know we're going to take from this and learn," Kull added.

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