Such sweep sorrow

Rosary players react after losing a sectional championship match to Suburban Catholic Conference rival St. Francis on Thursday night at Nazareth Academy.

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The hurdle remains the same for the Rosary volleyball team, and it's no mere speed bump.

Rather, it's looking more and more like one of those spike-covered, tire-piercing barriers that halt progress after the Class 3A Nazareth Academy Sectional final Thursday.

For the second straight year, the Royals' season had the same disappointing end point, only this time it came in two sets -- 25-18, 25-23 -- at the hands of their Suburban Catholic Conference rivals from St. Francis.

"It hurts to lose to them, but what are you gonna do?" Rosary coach Lisa Kasper said before heading back to the drawing board.

"No, it doesn't get old," said St. Francis coach Peg Kopec, whose team took advantage of Rosary errors to win the first game, then survived serious serving miscues of its own in the second.

This is the 20th sectional title St. Francis (32-7) has won in Kopec's 34 seasons.

"It doesn't get stagnant, it doesn't get stale," she continued. "It's fun every time."

The Spartans started having fun with the opener tied at 7, taking advantage of four straight Rosary errors for an 11-7 lead.

After Kasper called timeout for her team to regroup, St. Francis responded with kills from sophomore Margaret Vonderhaar, junior Cassie Rio and junior Kelsey Robinson, split up only by a Rio hitting error, to take a commanding 14-8 lead.

Remember those names.

"You know (Robinson) is gonna get her kills," Kasper said. "With a team like that, you've got to contain the other players."

Unfortunately for the Royals, they didn't.

Robinson, a 6-foot-1-inch jumping jack with a powerful spike, finished with 10 kills and two blocks. The 5-9 Rio added six kills (four in the opener) and a block, and the 6-1 Vonderhaar finished with nine kills (six in the second game) and a block.

"It's worse than the first time," said Rosary senior outside hitter Lindsey Weber, who finished with five kills. "We tried to make changes and we couldn't. I still feel like we gave it our all, they just gave more.

"They played amazing defense. They had great blocking. And we didn't step it up."

Senior Kelly Hogan led the Royals with six kills and a block. Several unsung players stepped up in the second game when it looked like Rosary would extend the match to three sets, just like the previous two matches the teams split earlier in the season.

Royals sophomore Amy Kus finished with four blocks, senior Alex Bodayla added three and freshman Amelia Wegman two to complement the three-kill, one-block effort of junior Emily Weber.

And after five second-game ties, the Royals jumped up 22-19 thanks to a rare setting error by the Spartans' Kristen Kelsay.

A Vonderhaar kill, a Rio block and a Kelsay block sandwiched around two more Rosary errors set the stage for Rio's thundering kill on match point.

"It wasn't that we didn't come to play," Kasper said. "We did; (the Spartans) just upped their game and we didn't.

"The last two times we played them (Vonderhaar and Rio) did not do that much damage to us. We contained them. Tonight, we did not."

And St. Francis met its objective.

"They're a predominantly outside hitting team; they don't run their middles much," Kopec said of the Royals. "And (No.) 22 (Lindsey Weber) is the cheese. She's very good. We wanted to block her or at least get two hands in her face if we could."

St. Francis will move on to face Joliet Catholic in the Oswego Super-Sectional on Saturday.

"I don't know if the girls thought we would get as far as we did," Kasper said. "I don't think they realized how good of a team we were gonna have.

"You can't be upset with a 28-11 record and second place in the conference. All in all, they accomplished a lot of good things.

"St. Francis has the experience. They have the tradition and until we get over this hump ... . We have to get over this hump first."