Tigers' torrid start wipes out Whip-Purs

Crystal Lake Central players Kellie Fredette (15), Dana Shannon (back) and Victoria Day celebrate a point during their match against Hampshire on Tuesday in the Class 3A Sycamore Regional at Sycamore High School. (Kyle Bursaw – kbursaw@shawmedia.com)

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SYCAMORE – Lisa Reddish spent the past few weeks talking to her Crystal Lake Central volleyball team about starting fast, but even the start to Tuesday’s first game against Hampshire went beyond her hopes.

Central got out to a 12-2 lead in the first game against the Whip-Purs and cruised to an eventual 25-6, 25-11 sweep in Tuesday’s Class 3A Sycamore Regional semifinals.

“The last couple of weeks of our season, we kind of had slow starts to our matches and that’s one of the things we really wanted to focus on is, hey, it’s anybody’s game once you hit the state series and everybody’s 0-0 and we wanted to make sure we started quick and kind of took control right away,” Reddish said.

The top-seeded Tigers (30-6) advanced to play third-seeded Sycamore (11-16) in the 6 p.m. Thursday regional title match. Sycamore fought back three match points against the No. 2 seed, Burlington Central, to win 25-19, 22-25, 29-27.

Central was sound in almost every aspect of its game, especially in its blocking, where Hampshire (11-26) couldn’t find a way to hit around the Tigers at the net.

Hampshire didn’t help itself with its hitting, committing errors throughout the first game. Central closed the game out on a 13-1 run.

“I’m not taking away anything from Crystal Lake, they’re a phenomenal team,” Hampshire coach Karen Whitehouse said. “But, honestly, it didn’t matter what team was over there tonight. We made unforced error after unforced error.

“They’re the No. 1 seed for a reason, but it really didn’t take much to beat us tonight.”

Sophomore middle blocker Lauren Levernez led Central with seven kills and three blocks. Sophomore Rachael Schoepke added two blocks.

“We started off blocking really strong at the net, that’s something we’ve been working on all season and to be able to frustrate another team helps out our defense a lot,” Reddish said. “It gave us more confidence for our hitters to swing away a little bit more.”

Natalie Ricca added 13 assists for Central, which utilized its passing attack to close out the second game on a 16-3 run.

“We probably came in intimidated and just couldn’t get any confidence going into the match. [Monday] we were serving [Genoa-Kingston] off the court,” Whitehouse said. “[Tuesday] we were serving free balls to one of the best passing teams in the conference.”