BELLEVILLE – Edwardsville’s girls volleyballers bring a lot of energy to the court, says Tiger sophomore outside hitter Maria Smith believes.
That, and a lot of team togetherness, she also believes.
Those factors certainly helped the Tigers to a 20-25, 25-9, 25-17 win over O’Fallon in an IHSA Class 4A Chatham Glenwood Sectional semifinal win at Belleville West Monday night; the win put the Tigers into Wednesday night’s sectional final against Pekin, who eliminated Normal Community in the other semifinal Monday.
“I just think that our energy really helped in what we bring as a team together,” Smith said following the win. “It’s just so important on how we play; it impacts every single point.”
O’Fallon won the opener, holding the Tigers at bay and not letting them get in front of them; in the second game, however, Edwardsville stormed out to a big lead early and never let the Panthers in the game. “The main thing here is our passing out of serve-receive – that’s just that one hit that we need, and on serve, we need to keep that momentum to build points,” Smith said.
Losing the opener didn’t necessarily sit well with Smith and the rest of the Tigers. “We get fired up; we don’t take losing lightly,” Smith said. “It was really big and we knew we needed to come out level-headed and stuff in that second (game) and just bring it.”
The rubber game stayed close; there were a pair of long rallies, including some spectacular plays by both teams, where the game could have turned with Edwardsville winning both points. “Everybody on our team has their role and we just trust in what we practice every day,” Smith said. “We work out the point.”
Last year’s Tigers reached the sectional final in Chatham before being eliminated by Normal Community; this year, the Tigers hope to go farther into Friday’s Normal West Super-Sectional and perhaps next weekend’s state tournament at Illinois State’s Redbird Arena in Normal.
“We’ve got to make sure we come out with our ‘A’ game,” Smith said of Wednesday’s sectional final against the Dragons, “ and all the energy we have; we’re not going to go down without a fight.
“We have a lot of talent that’s so versatile; we all come together and mix it up. We all have our own thing for the team; nobody outshines another, we’re all one.”
