Girls Volleyball: L-Way Central Sweeps Past L-Way West

The Lincoln-Way Central girls volleyball team responded from a disappointing appearance in the Rich East tournament over the weekend.

The Knights defeated Lincoln-Way West 25-10, 25-12 on Tuesday night in a Southwest Suburban crossover at West.

Lincoln-Way Central (12-6) turned an early 3-3 game into an 8-4 lead and never looked back in the first game. The Knights outscored the Warriors 22-7 to close out the game.

"We came back from a tough weekend and came together and killed it," Knights middle blocker Amanda Dolan said. "Before the game, we had a little talk and it pumped us all up."

After getting swept by Lincoln-Way East and Wheaton St. Francis over the weekend at Rich East, the Knights worked hard in practice on Monday in preparation for Tuesday's match.

"We worked really hard, I mean, we worked out butts off," Dolan said. "We just worked on everything, mostly passing and blocking, and getting everywhere where we need to be."

Dolan proved to be right where she needed to be in front of the net as she finished with a game-high of 13 blocks. She added three kills and an ace. Perhaps as significant as her blocks total was the fact she finished with zero errors.

"I was happy with how they played," Lincoln-Way Central coach Kathy Sulkowski said. "They came together in the middle and were mentally tough. We've been giving up runs of points, and we didn't do that tonight. They were mentally resilient, which is important at the midpoint of the season."

Lincoln-Way West (14-5) scored the first point of Game 2 but that would be the only lead the Warriors would enjoy the rest of the night. The Knights went on a 9-1 run to take a 9-2 lead.

"It was ugly," Lincoln-Way West coach Rory Harrison said. "I don't think we came to play, and it was just error after error after error. I think we have some things to figure out as we go into our match on Thursday."

The exciting matchup between two rival New Lenox schools never developed as Dolan and Danielle Dowd (10 kills, 7 blocks, 4 digs, 2 aces) proved to be way too much to handle.

"They are like the other rival school in New Lenox, and we wanted to show we're the better school," Dowd said. "We've been working hard. Both teams are very good, and we were excited to come out and play them and beat them on their own court."

Kaitlyn Siadek added 13 assists and three digs for the Knights. The Warriors received five digs and three kills from Annie Wegrzyn and six digs from Sarah Wegrzyn. Rachel Johnson added four kills and two blocks and Kelly Staack finished with seven assists.