Club volleyball: 8 locals lead Balance Volleyball to 2nd-place finish at AAU Junior National Championships

Balance Volleyball club director Patty Langanis called last month’s AAU Junior National Volleyball Championships one of the greatest highlights of her long coaching career.

Balance Volleyball’s 18 White team, seeded No. 1, almost ran the table and took runner-up out of 85 teams in the 18 Classic Division at the national tournament at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

After winning its first 12 matches in straight sets, Balance Volleyball came up short in the championship match with a 25-23, 18-25, 15-11 loss to Kairos Elite (South Dakota), ending the four-day event with a 12-1 record. The previous best finish for Balance, at a national tournament was 13th, according to Langanis.

Local players on the team were Cary-Grove’s Mya Bajramovic, Grace Eyrich and Lauren Passaglia, McHenry’s Emily Claussen, Prairie Ridge’s Olivia Jost and Haylee Yelle, Jacobs’ Jaclyn Poirier and Crystal Lake Central’s Lauren Klutke, along with Antioch’s Hannah Benes and Grace Regnier.

Passaglia, who recently graduated and already is on campus at Hillsdale College (Michigan), said the atmosphere of nationals – and playing for first place with everyone watching – was electric. Balance earned a thrilling, 31-29, 26-24 victory against Aurora-based Sports Performance to reach the final.

“Just being on that championship court was such an amazing feeling,” said Passaglia, who played volleyball, basketball and soccer at C-G. “That’s the court that everyone starts gravitating toward because that’s the best volleyball being played. Knowing it was us on that court was crazy.”

Passaglia has played at Balance for four years. She also played at C-G for Langanis, who finished her 26th year at the school in the spring, an abbreviated season without an IHSA state tournament because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before starting Balance, Langanis coached for 21 years at Sky High in Crystal Lake. Langanis started her Cary-based club in 2014, which aims to give players more time off during the typical club season, while also promoting multi-sport athletes and a better balance between life and volleyball.

“I knows it’s something she has been really working toward, building and developing players from a young age for a long time,” Passaglia said of Langanis. “Knowing the hard work is paying off is really cool. We’re starting to bring home some hardware and starting to make a name for ourselves.”

The club volleyball season proved to be more challenging because of the pandemic and shifting of sports during the high school season – with many players on Balance competing in multiple sports.

“We had seniors who decided that they didn’t want to play, we had to move younger players up and we had some new [players] join in February,” Langanis said. “It was such a difficult year with COVID. Our season would start, then it would stop, then we were practicing, and then we weren’t.”

“Sadly, we had a player diagnosed with cancer a month before the season, and we had to find a player to fill that spot. It was satisfying to see them all come together at the end of a long year.”

Poirier, who will be a senior in the fall, was one of the players to join the team late. She played a vital role, Langanis said.

“Seeing Jackie become an unstoppable middle, when just a month before, when she didn’t have her timing, wasn’t getting up and driving fast enough – to where she ended – it was just really enjoyable as a coach to see progress come so quick,” Langanis said.

Claussen, Eyrich (McHenry County College), Jost (Winona State), Passaglia and Regnier (University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point) each graduated. Langanis said she will remember this team – the best ever at Balance Volleyball – for a very long time.

“They just kept getting stronger and stronger,” Langanis said. “There was such a desire. They were all on the same page: ‘We’re not walking out of here without a championship.’ It was really fantastic to see that whole team commitment.

“We played teams bigger than us, we played teams that might have had more effective offenses, but we just grinded it out with our consistency and great ball control. It was so satisfying watching them perform at that level.”