St. Charles North shakes off early rust with sweep in season opener over Rosary

Amber Czerniak knows she’s not the biggest name on St. Charles North’s girls volleyball roster.

With the amount of talent filling the North Stars’ roster, including Penn State commit Haley Burgdorf, the senior outside hitter knows that she’s not always the main focus when opposing teams scout them out.

Yet, she knows she can be just as potent at the net as the rest of her team.

“I just focus on myself and what I can do and push to the best of my abilities,” Czerniak said. “I just try to prove to everyone that I’m really good too.”

And in the team’s first game of the 2025 season, she showed why she’s a secret weapon.

Czerniak finished with a game-high six kills as the North Stars finished their first match of the season on a 22-2 run, which included 12 consecutive points, to secure a 25-15, 25-4 victory over Rosary on Monday.

“For them to come out the way that they did, it was awesome,” North Stars coach Lindsey Hawkins said. “I think we can work on some things on defense. But other than that, the passing looked pretty good, the serving picked up in the second set, and when we transition quick and get in there, we’re hard to keep up with.”

The North Stars (1-0) showed early in the contest what they were capable of across the board, leading by a score of 18-6 midway through the first set.

But after sputtering to a 25-15 set victory, the North Stars knew that they had to make a statement in the second set.

“During our timeout between sets, we decided that we were going to make the scare even bigger of a difference,” Czerniak said. “We wanted to prove to everyone about what we can do and what we’re capable of. Because we know we can always do better, so we were just balling out as hard as we could.”

Along with Czerniak, Burgdorf finished the night with six kills of her own, with senior middle Sidney Wright close behind with five.

The North Stars were also aided by some impressive performances on the service line, with the team finishing with 15 aces on the night. Burgdorf and junior libero Addison Kashuba put up four aces apiece during the second set, while both Czerniak and Wright were close behind with three aces on the night.

“We’ve really been working on our serves in practice all the time,” said Wright, who also added five kills and a block on the night. “We put up like 10 good serves at the end of practice all the time, so it’s been a big focus for us. But it’s very important that we have strong, aggressive serves and not just lollipop it over the net.”

The Royals (0-1) did manage to put up a fight in the first set. After trailing by as many as 12 points midway through the set, Rosary managed to outscore North 9-7 before eventually dropping the set 25-15. Senior Lorely Gonzáles led the Royals with two kills and two blocks.

“I think the first game of the season, you can always expect there to be a little bit of rust, especially playing against a team like that with a hitter like Burgdorf,” Scafidi said. “But when we ran our offense and ran the game plan that we talked about in practice, it worked and we competed. It’s a mind over matter thing for us right now. We’ve got the talent, and we certainly need to hone it.”