Aurora Christian caught in Green Wave undertow

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ELGIN -- Victory did not come easy for St. Edward on Thursday night, but the Green Wave was able to push past Aurora Christian 25-13, 25-20 to advance to a Class 2A regional volleyball final.

The Green Wave (19-16) had little trouble with the Eagles (19-13) in Game 1, but Game 2 proved to be a tough, back-and-forth test for the third-seeded host.

"I have a pretty young team, not just in age, but in knowledge of the game," Aurora Christian coach Nicole Anderson said. "So I often have to help them out and encourage them and say, 'It's all just whatever game you want to make it.'

"I focus a lot on defense with my girls because we're not that big offensively, so when that was struggling in the first game, I just told them, 'If you're going to go out, then you're going to go out doing what Aurora Christian does, and that's playing good defense.'"

St. Edward struggled to hold its serve as the two teams exchanged points throughout the second game, with neither squad securing more than a two-point lead. That is until Katie Ayello went on a three-point service run to give the Wave 21-17 advantage.

The second-seeded Eagles called timeout and rallied with three straight points to pull within one.

The Wave then called a timeout and put the game away with four straight service points.

"We just adjusted our offense a little bit and regrouped," St. Edward coach Jaime Walton said. "I had to let them know what their defense was like and that we needed to place the ball a little better as opposed to hitting it hard."

The Wave had been hitting the ball hard throughout the match, thanks to dominating net play from Katie Yohn and Kristen Haggenjos.

St. Edward's struggles in Game 2 after such a thorough Game 1 win were due to a change in the Eagles' tactics.

"They started running their middle hitters more, which threw our middles off a bit," Walton said.

Mallory Gilkey had five blocks for Aurora Christian.

Although the Wave earned the victory, the team had a lot to take away from its up-and-down play in Game 2.

"That was a little a shaky for us. We couldn't really get anything going or run a good offense," Haggenjos said. "It's great though, that that's so easy to fix. There's not a major problem with that at all, we just lacked a little mental toughness there, but we knew what it took to win and we got it done."

Haggenjos ended the match with six digs and seven kills. Yohn added six digs, 11 kills and 10 assists. Tess Barry had two blocks and five kills, while Molly Kelly contributed three blocks.

St. Edward will face top-seeded Harvard for the regional title at 5 p.m. Saturday.