Texas recruit Abby VanderWal, Timothy Christian finally flip sectional script, beat IC Catholic Prep

WOODSTOCK – Dreams finally became a reality for Timothy Christian.

After consecutive years of having to watch IC Catholic Prep celebrate, the Trojans finally were able to flip the sectional script Thursday. Using a strong mix of outstanding defense and timely hitting, they cleared their biggest hurdle with a 25-21, 25-22 win over the Knights in the Class 2A Marian Central Sectional final.

“I’ve dreamt of this moment just for this team, and we wanted it so bad,” said senior Abby VanderWal, a Texas commit. “After the way the last two years have gone, I knew this was our last shot, or at least my last shot. I’m just so proud of how hard everybody worked. We really had a lot of girls step up tonight. It was amazing to see.”

VanderWal wasn’t kidding about a team effort. While she brought the biggest boost with eight kills and nine digs, Alex Lizzy’s defense (team-high 10 digs), Miriam Pozdol-Niego’s serving (three aces) and an outstanding all-around effort by sophomore Audrey Williams (eight kills, three blocks) lifted Timothy Christian into Monday’s home super-sectional match.

“(IC Catholic) is so relentless defensively,” Timothy Christian coach Scott Piersma said. “It’s unreal. … It’s how they’ve always played, and they always frustrate you. You need to beat them. You can’t wait for them to make mistakes. So to clean it up when it needed to be, feels really good.”

Cleaning things up was the biggest key in both sets.

Game 1 was tight the entire way until a 4-1 scoring run led by an Ella Rickert tip kill pushed the lead out to a comfortable 23-18. A Bella Potempa block then pushed the Trojans (37-2) over the top after a short burst from IC Catholic.

Timothy Christian didn’t waste any time in Game 2, rushing out to a 6-1 lead behind two VanderWal kills and a third from Rickert. From that point forward, each time IC Catholic made a run, the Trojans answered with tighter play offensively. After the Knights pulled within 13-9, a monster kill from VanderWal and a big ace from Potempa pushed the lead to 17-9. Later, a Kiely Kemph kill, a Maura Grogan block and two hits out of bounds by Timothy Christian made it 23-22 before Williams and Potempa’s kills put the match to rest.

“We tried so hard, so just seeing the hard work pay off is just awesome,” Williams said. “Everyone on the team made a difference. We needed everyone for this to work, and we did it.”

Kemph and Emily Carling each had five kills for IC Catholic (23-15). Delilah Hyland had five blocks while Grogan had four.

“They have really incredible blocks and fast hitters,” said IC Catholic coach Lauren LaVigne. “So some of those plays we’re just trying to play catch-up but they’re shoving it down our throats. It’s just hard, but I thought we did a great job keeping up with them and keeping Abby slowed down so she’s not just hitting it down into the floor. Defensively, we did incredible, it just didn’t come together for us offensively.”