3A girls volleyball: Season ends for Streator and Ottawa in semifinals

GENESEO — The Streator and Ottawa girls volleyball teams both had seasons end Tuesday night in the semifinals of the Class 3A Geneseo Regional. The subsectional No. 9-seeded Bulldogs fell in straight sets to No. 6 and host Geneseo, while the No. 3 Pirates won the first set before dropping the final two to No. 6 Pontiac.

Geneseo 25-25, Streator 12-14

In the opening set Streator matched the Maple Leafs point for point, with the help of a kill each from Shaelyn Groesbeck and Aubrey Jacobs. But then with a one-point lead, Geneseo’s Katherine Barickman exploded on a 10-point serving run that included a pair of aces, kills from Katie VanDeWoestyne and Brylee Sheffler and six Streator hitting errors.

The second set mirrored the first with kills from Groesbeck and Emma Rambo keeping things close at 11-8, but a five-point burst by Barickman, which included three straight aces in-between kills from Kailee Williams, and three kills by Kendall Ellerbrock down the stretch helped Geneseo close out the victory.

Jacobs and Sonia Proksa led Streator (13-15-5) with four kills each, with Groesbeck and Rambo (nine assists) adding two apiece. Williams paced Geneseo (25-8) with six kills with Lizzie Rapps adding five.

“We started off both really strong, but overall, we were just too inconsistent,” Streator coach Julie Gabehart said. “Geneseo has a big, physical and tall team, they outsized us for sure, but I thought we did a good job early in both sets of finding ways around their blocks. Then in the middle of both sets we got into a tough spot in our serve receive and it got in our heads. We weren’t letting the last point go, during the next point we were still worrying about the last one. In volleyball you can’t do that, you have to move on. We just didn’t do a great job of that. We just dug ourselves too big a hole to try and get out of against a really solid team.

“We took another stride forward as a program. Did we have the final record we wanted? No, but we lost a number of very close games that a couple plays here and there would have been the opposite outcome. We are starting to be able to do more advance things and are starting to run a faster offense. Those will be keys to getting even stronger in the years to come.”

Pontiac 23-25-25, Ottawa 25-14-18

Ottawa trailed by two late in the opening set, but a side out kill by Ella Damron and three-point serving run by Ana Zeglis, which included back-to-back kills by Mary Stisser gave the Pirates the upper hand.

However, the Indians (24-11) scored 12 of the final 19 points to take the second set, then up 15-14, used a side out kill by Alix Robinson and four-point serving run by Layla Pulliam, then a kill and ace from Robinson and block by Elena Krause to all but close out the match.

Ayla Dorsey (two blocks) had eight kills, Damron six and Addison Duggan (two blocks) and Stisser (two aces) five each to led Ottawa (24-12) at the net. Skylar Dorsey passed for 22 assists, with the defense led by 17 digs from Kendall Biba, 16 from Stisser, and 11 from Skylar Dorsey.

“We had more hitting errors than I would have liked in the first set, but we overcame that with some good hitting in between and tough defense,” Ottawa coach Jenn Crum said. “The in the second set we cleaned up the offense, but we then had troubles in our serve receive that hurt us. The third set was back and forth for a while, but they were able to get a three- of four-point run midway in and we just couldn’t ever get back even. I know the girls were trying like heck to get our attacks to hit inbounds all night, but some nights the ball has other ideas.

“I really didn’t talk about it much, but we really didn’t have that outside hitter that night in and night out you knew you were going to get double-digit kills from. We had to work around that this year and the girls we asked to fill that role did a great job for us. This senior group will be missed for sure, they were a great bunch to coach.”