Timothy Christian had this one circled on the calendar.
“Oh, yeah, we’ve been waiting a long time,” Timothy Christian senior Kacie Stoll said. “We were just ready to play. We’ve been training for this like crazy. It’s been our motivation during practice. It’s been, ‘OK, let’s go get Chicago Christian.’
“This was oh so fun. I loved it.”
Entering Tuesday’s game against visiting Chicago Christian, the Trojans had lost just once in their previous 27 matches. Back on September 18, the Knights defeated Timothy Christian 25-20, 25-16 in Palos Heights.
But that was then. This was now.
Stoll had six of her team-high 11 kills and Kaitlyn Gehrke added five of her seven kills in the deciding set as the Trojans grabbed a piece of the Metro Suburban Conference East Division lead with a 25-23, 18-25, 25-17 victory over the Knights in Elmhurst.
“We know our schedule isn’t jampacked with the big teams,” Timothy coach Scott Piersma said. “Going through conference, we know that we don’t have the strongest schedule. So it’s good to beat the teams that are big and strong … to beat Illiana Christian three times, to split with Chicago Christian.
“This is a big confidence boost going into the state tournament because there’s a possibility that we may get to the supersectional, and if we do we’ll probably see them again. So it’s nice to have this win and not be beaten by them twice.”
Timothy Christian (27-1, 10-1) overcame a 9-4 deficit to win Game 1, but a kill by Anna Kamp gave Chicago Christian a 17-11 lead in Game 2 which the Trojans never threatened. But Timothy roared to a 11-5 lead in the third set, forcing the Knights to call timeout.
“Timothy ran a very smart offense,” Chicago Christian coach Chrissy Gust said. “They were able to put the ball down around our big blocks. Offensively, they looked a lot stronger than what we saw earlier in the season offensively.”
Timothy extended the lead to 18-11 on a kill by Gehrke, but the Knights ran off five unanswered points to get within 18-16 on an ace by Samantha Kubik. But that was as close as Chicago Christian would get as Stoll provided kills on four of the next six points to give the Trojans some breathing room at 24-16.
Sophomore Kendra Teune added six kills for Timothy Christian, which also got 25 assists from Dani Van Laten and a strong effort from libero Hanna Markewycz in the back row.
Anna Kamp led Chicago Christian (24-3, 10-1) with 13 kills and three aces, Leah Kamp had eight kills, three blocks and two aces and Samantha Kubik added 20 assists and three kills.
