West Aurora beats Wheaton North for 20th win

For the third year in a row, West Aurora and Wheaton North teamed up for Volley for the Cure.

This year, the Blackhawks celebrated the event with their 20th win of the season with a DuPage Valley victory over the Falcons 25-16, 25-22 Tuesday in Aurora.

For both coaches, Volley for the Cure hits close to home.

“This is important to me because my mom is a breast cancer survivor,” West Aurora coach Kari Nicholson said. “It’s a cause that’s also important to the girls. Every year it gets a little better.”

“Both my mom and mother-in-law are breast cancer survivors, and they were both here tonight,” Wheaton North coach Carole Kristensen said. “It’s for a great cause.”

West Aurora (20-8, 9-2) remains in the thick of the DVC race. Its next opponent is Naperville North Thursday.

“It’s been a good season for us,” Nicholson said. “This is a very intense and focused group of young ladies. They have a goal in mind.”

“This season has been the best one yet,” West Aurora junior Lauren Carlini added. “We’ve worked so hard for this. In the past few years, we’ve been building the team up, and to finally have a good winning record and to be in the top three teams in the DVC is great.”

In Game 1, West Aurora led most of the way. The Blackhawks pulled away early and scored the final two points on back-to-back kills from Carlini and Abriya Zeitz.

“We were very focused in Game 1,” Nicholson said. “In the second game, we lost the focus a little bit.”

There were nine ties in Game 2 before Carlini had a kill and three aces to push the Blackhawks out of a 14-14 knot. Wheaton North (7-15, 3-7) was able tie it at 20-all, but West Aurora fired back with four consecutive points for a 24-20 lead.

Wheaton North followed that with a timeout and the next two points, but the Blackhawks closed out with blocks from Lauren Wilson and Carlini.

Carlini led the way with 10 digs, eight assists, six kills and five blocks. Wilson had four kills and four blocks.

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