Rosary falls to familiar foe

Updated: March 22, 2011 5:10PM

It wasn't the Rosary volleyball team's night.

A familiar nemesis - Suburban Christian Conference Blue Division rival St. Francis - eliminated the Royals Tuesday from the state playoffs, claiming a 25-17, 25-10 victory in the second semifinal of the Class 3A Rosary Sectional.

The second-seeded Spartans advance to Thursday's 7 p.m. sectional title match against top-seeded Joliet Catholic Academy, which beat Lemont 25-19, 25-20 in the early semifinal.

"They beat us in three games the only time we played them earlier this year," St. Francis setter Kelly Reinke said.

The Spartans looked nearly unbeatable this night. They feature a powerful offense paced by 6-foot-2 outside hitter Meg Vonderhaar and a strong net defense anchored by 6-2 middle blocker Daiva Wise. While the tall trees stand out, St. Francis coachPeg Kopec gets contributions from all over the court.

"They played very well. We did not play very well," said Rosary coach Lisa Kasper, whose team closes the season 26-11.

"Our serve receive was not there tonight. We needed to pass as well as we're capable of passing and we did not pass the ball very well tonight. We had 20 errors."

Vondehaar, who is headed to Notre Dame on scholarship, led the Spartans with seven kills, but the winners got five each from outside hitter Lauren Duncan and right side Grace Churney.

The Spartans never trailed in the opening game, which was close for awhile. St. Francis led by two points five different times, the last at 10-8, before pulling away to a comfortable lead on a four-point serving run by defensive specialist Theresa Katarzynski.

Rosary led 3-1 early in the second game but the Spartans rallied to tie it 3-3 on one of Reinke's two blocks and Wise's service ace gave them the lead for good.

"They're a really good team," said Reinke, who had 17 assists for the Spartans. "Every time we play them they bring it really hard. We weren't coming in overly confident even if we had beaten them twice. We were pretty humble, practiced hard and were ready to play.

"It all starts with defense and they really scrapped tonight. It's easy to get kills when the defense is there."

Amelia Wegman led the Royals with six kills and had five digs but it wasn't her strongest game. Defensive specialist Haley Norris was all over the floor gathering her nine digs. Lindsay Juriga had 10 assists and Breann Maryanski three kills.

"Haley played very well," Kasper said. "And we needed to use Maryanski more. But when your outside hitters are not having a good game you're going to struggle. They just picked a bad night not to play very well."

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