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EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville High girls’ volleyball team achieved one of their preseason goals on Thursday night with a 25-15, 25-18 win over Springfield High School in the IHSA Class 4A regional final at Lucco-Jackson Gym.
The Tigers, who improved to 23-12 on the year, advances to the Bloomington Sectional semifinal, where they’ll play O’Fallon on Monday night at Belleville East. Edwardsville defeated the Panthers 25-21, 25-20 on Oct. 2, which was the Tigers’ biggest win of the regular season.
Edwardsville, with only one senior, Corrine Timmerman, on its roster, has definitely come a long way this season and worked hard to achieve one of its preseason goals.
“Oh, yeah,” said Tigers coach Lisa Orlet. “I mean, it’s huge. I think that they set some goals early on in the season, and this is one of them, for sure. And they, I’m sure, had their doubts when we were struggling at the beginning of the season. But like I keep saying, they just kept plugging away every practice, and they’ve built a huge trust in each other, and they’re really having a blast, and I think that’s key.”
Edwardsville’s service game enabled them to jump out to a big lead in the first game.
“Yes, absolutely,” Orlet said. “It’s something that we’ve been working on, just take other teams out of their system, serve tough and help our defense be able to set up around it. And we have some key players that are really doing some big things with their serves.”
Sophomore setter Morgan Tulacro also played a key role in spreading the offense around to the hitters that scored big points with their spikes.
“Morgan is spreading out the offense, we’re adding some new hitters in key spots,” Orlet said, “and that’s been very, very helpful. It’s great. Morgan’s been a joy; she’s just continued to climb the ladder to success and believe in herself and gain more confidence with every match. I’m proud of her, she’s really distributing the ball well.”
Tulacro also had a big service run that gave the Tigers the separation they needed to win the second game and the match.
“She’s very confident back there, and it’s great to see,” Orlet said.
The Tigers jumped out to an early 5-2 lead in game one behind the serving of Rihanna Huebner and Kaitlyn Conway, and after an exchange of points, Jillian Allen served up eight points in a row, aided by a pair of Tulacro kills, a pair of service aces and an Alexa Harris spike to send the Tigers to a 14-3 lead before the Senators got the ball back. Abby Ratsch served up back-to-back points for Springfield to cut the lead to 14-6, and after a Huebner spike brought the score to 16-8, Tulacro served up four more Tiger points, with Emma Garner and Tulacro combining on a block to help the Edwardsville extend the lead to 20-8. The Senators did cut the lead to 21-12, but the Tigers scored four of the game’s final eight points to ride out 25-15 winners and take a one-game lead in the match.
The second game started out as very much a see-saw affair, where neither team was able to gain a lead of more than two points throughout. Storm Suhre had three kills in a row to give the Tigers a one-point edge, while Ratsch, Anna Lamsargis and Sophie Eves all combined to help keep Springfield level. With the score tied at 12-12, a combined block from Huebner and Tulacro gave Edwardsville both the lead and the ball. Tulacro gained the service, and promptly reeled off four consecutive points, aided by a block from Harris and Huebner and kills from both Huebner and Timmerman to force a Senator time out. Springfield got the ball back after the timeout, but Harris then got a spike to get the ball back for the Tigers, and immediately served up four more points in a row, getting a pair of aces, a block from Timmerman and Huebner and a Maddie Isringhausen kill to extend the lead to 22-13. Sydney Buhnerkemper served up three consecutive points to cut the lead to 22-16, but the Tigers scored three of the last five points, clinching the match on a violation for the final 25-18 score and the match in two straight.
The Tigers will be getting back to work to prepare for the Panthers, a 26-24, 25-23 winner over Collinsville in the Belleville East regional final Thursday night, and Orlet is looking forward to it.
“Right, exactly, so that’s good,” Orlet said with a smile. “Definitely good to be practicing tomorrow. Springfield’s a very classy organization; the coach (Bill Sturm) has been there for 35 years. It’s nice to come away with a win tonight for sure.”
Orlet is looking forward to the challenge of the Panthers, a familiar opponent from the Southwestern Conference.
“Definitely,” Orlet said. “That’s going to be the good and bad of it, yeah, that’s going to be somebody that we’ve played before.”
And Orlet is very proud of her club as well.
“Just very proud of them, and very happy for this squad to pull off one of their beginning of the year goals,” Orlet said.
Steven Spencer also contributed to this story.
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