BELLEVILLE – The Edwardsville High girls’ volleyball team saw its successful season come to an end on Monday evening, as the Tigers lost to O’Fallon 25-18, 25-20 in the IHSA Class 4A Bloomington sectional semifinal match, played at Belleville East.
The Tigers, with only one senior on their roster, Corrine Timmerman, finish with a 23-13 record, while the Panthers advance to Wednesday evening’s final with a record of 31-7.
O’Fallon never trailed in the first game, building an early 5-1 lead and maintaining it for most of the game, extending the advantage to 19-9 with senior Lauren Lepere leading the way with a kill, along with a pair of service aces. The Tigers rallied behind a pair of kills by sophomore hitter Alexa Harris, but the Panthers put Edwardsville away to take the 25-18 win.
The second game saw the Tigers jump out to a 4-1 as Maddie Isringhausen led the way, then extended the advantage to 10-4 before O’Fallon rallied to tie the game at 12-12 as Edwardsville was plagued by various mistakes that allowed the Panthers to get back into the game. After an exchange of points, O’Fallon went ahead for good as Lepere had a pair of kills that put the Panthers up 18-16.
Edwardsville was able to cut the lead to 19-18, but O’Fallon took six of the next eight points, as Lepere added three kills to win the game 25-20 and the match in two games.
Lepere led O’Fallon with eight kills and nine digs on the match, while Kelsie Schleppe had eight digs and Abby Braswell had 17 assists for the Panthers. Harris finished the match with nine kills and five digs for the Tigers, with Storm Suhre having four kills. Rihanna Huebner, Jillian Allen, and Timmerman each had four digs and Morgan Tulacro had 17 assists.
Timmerman concluded a brilliant high school volleyball career as a four-year varsity player.
The Panthers will play the host Purple Raiders, a 25-19, 25-19 winner over Normal Community West in the other semifinal, in a 6 p.m. match Wednesday. The winner will play in the Normal Community super-sectional match Friday night against the Plainfield North sectional winner, either Lisle Benet Academy or Naperville North, at 6 p.m. The State finals are set for Nov. 9-10 at Illinois State University’s Redbird Arena in Bloomington-Normal.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
