Having already used a late burst to capture the opening set, Manteno looked to be in control of the second set as well against Seneca in Thursday’s Class 2A Seneca Regional championship match.

Down five, the subsectional No. 3-seeded Fighting Irish fought back to knot the set, but the No. 2-seeded Panthers bounced back quickly to grab back the momentum, and eventually finished off a 25-15, 25-21 victory to raise a regional championship plaque for the first time since the last of four straight run in 2017.

“I thought we played well tonight,” said Manteno junior Maddie Gesky, who ended the night with eight kills, a block, two aces, 12 service points and four digs. “This team is special; we all just love playing together and for each other. I feel like one of our best team qualities is we have the ability to find a way to stop another team from going on extended runs and we were able to do that near the end of the second set when Seneca came back and tied things up.

“We just believe in ourselves and each other.”

Manteno (31-5) now advances to the Peotone Sectional semifinal on Tuesday at 6 p.m. where it will face Chicago Christian, which defeated Sandwich 25-12, 25-13 in Chicago Christian Regional.

Seneca finishes the season at a solid 24-12.

“This group of girls has been a force to reckon with all season,” Manteno coach Alexis Hosselton said. “They work so well with one another, they work hard in practices, and they are all best friends. There is no drama, just a group of girls that wants to keep playing as long as they can this season.”

Gesky was followed on the stat sheet by junior Maddy Belisle (nine kills, a block, 10 digs), junior Danika Fletcher (11 assists, including the 1,000th of her career, three aces, five digs), sophomore Kendall Blanchette (13 digs, an ace, a kill), freshman Olivia McElroy (five kills, two blocks), junior Morgan Derrico (nine digs, an ace, an assist) and junior Leah Donnelly (10 assists, four digs).

“I thought we played an overall solid match, but setter Danika Fletcher was really on tonight,” Hosselton said. “I’m not sure she had a set tonight that wasn’t right on the money. Setters make any offense run, and she did a great job of keeping ours running.”

“We may have tipped a little more that we normally do, but sometimes you have to when the other team is putting up a good block like Seneca was tonight,” Gesky said. “I think overall we made the right decision to tip or swing away more often than not.”

Manteno led the back-and-forth opening set 15-14 before a side out kill by Gesky was followed by her eight-point service run that included two kills from Belisle and two blocks by McElroy. Belisle closed out the set with a winning swing from the left side.

In the second set, the Panthers used three aces by Fletcher and a pair of kills by Gesky to forge a 14-8 lead. The advantage reached 18-13 after a kill by Belisle, but Seneca found a groove.

The Irish used kills from senior Tessa Krull, junior Graysen Provance and sophomore Brooklyn Sheedy, plus an ace by junior Aurora Weber to tie things at 19-19.

However, Manteno kills from McElroy, Gesky and Blanchette, and two Seneca hitting miscues to make it 24-21 before kill by Leah Milton on match point.

Sheedy led Seneca with a match-high 11 kills, with Franki Meyers adding three. Weber finished with a team-best six points and Provance 14 assists.

“We got on that nice run and tied the second set up at 18 and I thought, ‘Here we go, we have all the momentum,’” Seneca coach Noah Champene said. “But like it did all match, it seemed like we did get to them a little bit and (Gesky) or (Belisle) would answer back.

“Manteno just doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, and they played a very clean match tonight. There are always things you can do better, but I really feel we played up to our protentional tonight. I thought we served well, passed well and blocked well. We just ran into a better team tonight, a team I can see making a deep run.”