Girls Volleyball: Cailyn Smiley, Oswego East use stunning rally to beat Plainfield North, set program win record

OSWEGO – Cailyn Smiley was in the middle of posing for pictures with her Oswego East teammates when an explosion of glittery confetti showered onto them.

The Wolves had reason to celebrate.

Smiley’s thunderous kill at match point capped a stunning 9-1 run to end the second set. With it, Oswego East rallied past visiting Plainfield North 25-20, 26-24 in a matchup of Southwest Prairie Conference unbeatens.

Oswego East (21-5, 6-0 SPC) took sole possession of the conference lead – and in the process set a program record for wins. Long after it was over, the Wolves lay in a circle at center court, wearing blue sunglasses shaped like stars amid confetti and endless pictures.

“It’s amazing,” Smiley said. “We’ve been preparing for this moment since last year. We were so ready to get back and compete and really did today. Everybody showed up and it was amazing.”

Amazing is one word for the Wolves’ second-set rally.

When Lauren Jansen put down a kill for Plainfield North (17-7, 5-1) to make it 23-17, the match looked ticketed for a deciding third set.

But Vivian Campbell gave the Wolves back serve with a kill, then delivered an ace to start the comeback. Megan Maier followed with a kill off a Tigers overpass, and another Campbell ace made it 23-21. A Jansen kill momentarily stopped the bleeding for Plainfield North to set up set point, but Oswego East scored the last five points of the match.

A Maier ace tied it at 24, and a Smiley kill off a block set up an improbable match point. Improbable, that is, to everyone but the Wolves.

“I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I knew we were going to do it,” Oswego East coach Dina Beamon said. “This is our year. They’re hungry for it. The girls are determined, and we all spoke it. This is our year. I can’t be prouder of them.”

At match point, Campbell set up Smiley on the left pin, and she unleashed a devastating spike deep into the Plainfield North back row.

“Match point, I was just focused. Vivian gave me a good ball, and I was just trying to stay focused and composed,” Smiley said. “Coming from that six-point deficit was crazy.”

Crazy is the leaping ability of Smiley, who had a team-high eight kills to go along with seven digs. Campbell had 15 digs, four kills and nine assists and Savina Trujillo had 15 assists.

“When [Smiley] is on, she is on, and you cannot stop that girl. She can jump out of the gym,” Beamon said. “With her, it’s deciding to do what she needs to do. And today she decided to do it.”

“Lots of training,” Smiley said. “I play on Sports Performance, doing vertical training. It takes a lot of time and a lot of work.”

Jansen had a team-high eight kills for Plainfield North, which was hurt by eight errors in the first set, three on missed serves. The Tigers missed three more serves in the second set. Ella Maletich had two kills and two blocks for the Tigers.

“Too many errors. We gave away too many errors in the first and second sets. Too many serving errors and too many passing errors,” Plainfield North coach Matt Slechta said. “We never really put pressure on them. We basically gave them points. It’s stuff we can fix. We have two and a half or three more weeks to fix it.”

Oswego East, meanwhile, has five more conference matches over the next two weeks to wrap up a conference title the Wolves declared they’d win after their first match of the season.

“We’ve been in the gym every single day after school. It’s a lot of work but we come in focused every day,” Smiley said. “We all have the same goal.”