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HINSDALE – Smudges of mascara accompanied tears cascading down Maya Lopez’s face as she was mugged by friends and family just past mid-court.
St. Charles East – in coach Jennie Kull’s final season before retirement – defeated No. 1-seeded Loyola Academy 25-22, 25-18 in the Class 4A Hinsdale Central Supersectional to vault the Saints to their first trip to state since 2011.
The march for St. Charles East began in August, and the Saints went 5-2 in DuKane Conference play. Their last loss was Oct. 15 to Benet Academy. Since then, they’ve won seven consecutive matches en route to regional, sectional and supersectional plaques.
“It means everything,” Lopez, the Saints’ defensive specialist said amid the celebration. “I wanted to do it all for my teammates and all for Kull. That’s who we’ve been playing for all season. It’s her last year. We want to make it the best one yet.
“It’s truly an honor that my teammates trusted me with that role [defensive specialist] and I was able to do them well.”
The Saints (33-7) will face Mother McAuley at 8:30 p.m. Friday in a state semifinal at Redbird Arena.
St. Charles East managed to overcome a pair of two-point deficits in the first set to tie it at 20-20 on Lexi Crossen’s booming block at the net. After another Crossen kill and a Loyola attack error, the Ramblers responded with a pair of kills from Ellen Gundlach and Gabby Charlier to tie it at 22.
Crossen and Kate Goudreau pounded kills before a Loyola error on a lift finished set one at 25-22.
Despite the deficits in the set, the Saints didn’t appear to be rattled in the huddle.
“We play one point at a time,” Lopez said. “We kept ourselves as calm as possible. We wanted to just not overreact. We knew that we’ve been down before. We knew how to handle those situations. We’ve prepared for it during our practices. That’s how we practice. That’s how we play.”
In set two, the Ramblers and Saints were tied eight teams to point 18. From there, four errors and kills from Goudreau and Musial set up match point.
During a prolonged back-and-forth on match point, Schneider finally tossed over a volley the Ramblers got a piece of but couldn’t vault back over.
“We work together,” Saints senior Kristin Erickson said. “Constantly talking on the court is our biggest thing. And if we get stuck, just [keep] going. We just talk about every single point and everything matters to us. We don’t want to let anyone down. Even when we miss a point, we know we’re going to get the next one back because we’re all confident.”
Goudreau led with 13 kills, Crossen had seven and Natalee Rush had five. Goudreau had five digs, while Erikson had four and Musial, Rush and Lopez had two apiece.
“We have absolutely so much confidence. I think in practice we’ve simulated all of these teams and we’ve put forth so much effort,” Musial said amid yells of elation and yays from Kull in the background. “I just know going into these games we were so prepared and we had no doubt in our mind that we could pull through this. With the strength we have as players talent-wise and the connection relationship-wise, having Kull and the rest of the coaches, it all [came] together.”
Loyola (31-9), which was vying for its first state bid since 2014, was paced by six kills by Gundlach, five by Charlier and four from Ava Bogan.
“We definitely put up a huge fight, but again we put up a good fight [22] points the first set and 18 points the second set. It’s 25 points [to win],” Ramblers coach Mallory Thelander said. “We have to put up a fight the whole game. That was where we fell short.
“And then our serving errors. I mean, we had four serving errors in the second set. When it’s a tight game, you make up those four points and we can win that.”