Mother McAuley gets by St Francis

Updated: September 15, 2011 9:17PM

Defense isn’t glamorous. Except for an occasional block for a point and a few digs, it doesn’t show up in the stat book. Offense draws the oohs and ahhs, and there’s nothing that pleases the crowd more than a powerful kill that knocks somebody off their feet.

Mother McAuley coach Jen DeJarld admits her team is not even that impressive in warmups, when attackers aren’t facing any blockers and can unleash shots with unabated fury. But then, even a major league baseball pitcher can hit one onto the street in batting practice.

McAuley is at its best during the game, playing defense.

“I’ve had more success as a coach when I’ve coached teams that are better defensively than offensively,” DeJarld said. “Last year, I thought we were better offensively and our defense was hot and cold. It kind of affected us more.”

“I think we have a great setter, I think we have great defense, and our hitting is going to get better,” she added.

That’s bad news for everybody left on McAuley’s schedule.

Tuesday in Wheaton, Lizzy Scanlon had 11 kills and two aces, Lauren Grady had five kills and four blocks, sophomore setter Courtney Joyce had 21 assists and the backrow combination of Jackie Aird and Bridget Powell dug everything in sight as No. 5 McAuley (4-2) defeated St. Francis 25-19, 25-20 in front of a raucous home crowd.

“We focus a lot of our efforts on defense because that is our strength,” DeJarld said. “Our blocking is the key to slowing down the balls for our backrow, and I’m seeing my girls run through more balls where earlier we would just kind of flop to the floor too much.”

“We have some nice (offensive) threats, but I think we are more of a defensive club than an offensive club,” she added.

Grady, a 6-foot senior middle blocker and the tallest player on the roster, was a dual threat Tuesday, blocking and hitting.

“Everything is starting to come together,” Grady said. “We’re working on little things in practice, and one by one they’re all starting to come together...setting, connecting with our middles, blocking. We worked on a lot of blocking and it clicked tonight.

“It felt real good to finally get it all together,” she added. “It feels good to beat a highly competitive team. They don’t like losing, we don’t like losing. It’s really good to match up with teams like this.”

Carly Warner had eight kills and nine assists for No. 7 St. Francis (13-2), which fell behind 12-6 and 19-13 in Game 1 and 19-12 in Game 2 before mounting furious rallies down the stretch.

“The girls showed a lot of perseverance,” St. Francis coach Peg Kopec said. “We were down and climbed back, not enough to win, but we could have easily given up. No matter who we’ve played, when we come back from behind to win and surprise people, it’s been that perseverance. Now they just have to not give up with a little more execution.”

Haley Gable and Daiva Wise each added four kills for St. Francis, which was warned about McAuley’s defense prior to the game.

“They are an exceptional defensive team,” Kopec said. “We played Marian Central, which is a good defensive team, but before we started tonight I said I believe this team (McAuley) will be better than Marian Central defensively.

“I told the girls, ‘Try not to get frustrated and out of sorts, because that’s what a defense does to you,’” she added. “I thought we did an OK job of that. There was not a lot of panicking. But there also wasn’t a lot of execution.”

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