Girls volleyball: Lyons sweeps Lockport to open the season

LOCKPORT – The season-opening volleyball match between Lyons and Lockport was a back-and-forth affair between two solid teams. At different times, it looked like either team could win both sets.

But when Lyons found itself down 6-3 in the second set, Kate Badrov did what great players do when their team needs them: Make big plays.

After Lyons managed a point, Badrov served five consecutive aces to tie the set. Lyons went on to win that set, as it did the first, taking Lockport down with a 25-18, 25-22 victory.

It was a scorching hot night outside and the match was delayed one hour because of travel issues. Being the first match of the season, even Lockport head coach Nick Mraz said it wasn’t the cleanest of matches.

“I wanted to help my team,” Badrov said. “It’s cool to get an ace, but I was more focused on how many more points we could get. That’s kind of the mentality I had. I stayed calm, cool and collected, and just knew where to push the ball.”

It was as tight a contest as possible in the early going with each team trading points to a 4-4 tie. Even after Lockport pulled up 7-5, it was 9-9 again in the blink of an eye. However, after Lockport pulled ahead 11-10, Lyons began to find separation, going on a 5-1 run before closing out the set 10-6 the rest of the way to win 25-18.

The second set was back and forth in a different sense. Lockport went up 3-0 before Lyons scored three straight to tie it up. Another three straight made it 6-3 Lockport when Badrov’s serving spree began. Eventually the two teams tied again at 9-9 and the battle resumed. Lockport’s 16-13 edge dwindled to 17-16 before being erased.

However, it was still a one-point difference much of the time until Lyons pulled ahead 23-20. Two quick points by Lockport made it a contest once more, but Lyons got the final two points it needed to get the win and the sweep.

“I think there was a lot of first-match nervous energy,” Lyons coach Jill Bober said. “We also have a lot of new faces on our team that are learning together on the court. I think we were able to stay together and turn it on. Our serve receive and our defense were certainly on point tonight. ... I think it shows with how we were able to keep them out of system for as many points as we could. All of those things contributed.”

Of course, five consecutive aces from Badrov certainly helped.

“She was phenomenal,” Bober said. “There were a couple of serves where I thought, ‘I don’t know if we’ve seen that out of her.’ It was pretty great to see an offense effort like that.”

As for Lockport, it’s an 0-1 start to the season with a tournament in Plainfield this weekend providing the next opportunity for victory. While there was resiliency in Set 2 and effort in Set 1, Mraz said there was good and bad to take away from this one.

“You have to look at what went wrong and focus on that the next few days in practice,” he said. “You have to highlight some of the things that went well. Obviously, we have to keep those strengths going. It was a hot night in the gym and a late night with a lot of sloppy volleyball. We passed a 1.36 and they passed a 1.1 serve receive so they were a little stronger in transition and executing out-of-system balls.”

The Porters were led by Jenna Kolosta (six kills, two blocks), Natalie Bochantin (10 assists) and Malley Green (seven assists).

While Lyons hosts Lincoln-Way West on Thursday, Mraz and the Porters will be focused on growing a team that’s still learning to play together.

“It’s a young group,” he said. “Regardless of the senior and sophomore composition they’ve only been together two and a half weeks. We won’t look the same in October and that’s the goal.”