JCA's Wyman? Well, why not?

JCA's Brittany Budimier (9) spikes the ball over Morris's Jenna Belt in the Angels' 25-13, 25-13 victory.
(Larry Kane/Special to the Herald News)

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MORRIS -- On a night when two old friends staged a volleyball reunion, a new kid pushed her way into the thick of the fuzzy-warm plot.

Lainey Wyman, a 6-foot-2 sophomore middle hitter playing in her third varsity match, achieved a level of perfection seldom matched even by girls much more seasoned in Joliet Catholic Academy's 25-13, 25-13 victory over Morris on Thursday night.

Wyman had nine kills in nine attempts and controlled play at the net. She also registered seven blocks as the Angels (3-0) won their third straight and tuned up for play in the Geneva Tournament on Saturday by working 12 girls into the action.

Wyman's perfect night came in large part as the result of the work of junior libero Stephanie Keca and senior setter Gina Vera.

Keca's hustle in the back row kept the ball from falling on JCA's side of the net. And her passing was almost always right on target. She finished with 11 service points and five digs. Vera racked up a match-high 24 assists. She also had two of JCA's eight service aces.

"Having a perfect pass enables me to run any kind of offense I want," Vera said. "We usually try to stick to the really quick stuff, and (Keca) enables us to do that. We love her back there. We have complete faith in her to be on the line for defense and to be in the hole. She's pretty much everywhere.

"Once, when she shanked a pass, someone went and got it, and she got a backrow kill off of it. To have her do that and to have her back there gives me so many options, which helps my hitters, which enables us to win. It's awesome."

Wyman's quick development could be described in much the same fashion. She already has found a rhythm in the JCA attack -- say nothing of a place in the middle of the Hickey sisters. Senior co-captain Katie Hickey starts on the right side for the Angels. Junior Annemarie Hickey flanks her on the outside. Annemarie is JCA's top gun.

She had eight kills and five digs against the Redskins (0-2) but sat out much of the second game and watched Wyman do her thing.

"I love Gina Vera's sets," Wyman said. "And once we get the timing down, it will be even better than it is now. We've been in camp for about a month now. We've already connected. But we still have lots more to work on and we can get even better."

JCA coach Christine Scheibe was pitted against Morris' Amy Barr in battle of teacher vs. pupil. Scheibe grew up in Morris and later coached Barr during her high school heyday with the Redskins. The two later spent a year coaching together at JCA. They remain close friends.

"Early in the season, I want to get in as many girls as possible so I know when it comes to a crunch-time situation who I can go to and who I can trust out there," Scheibe said. "I think everybody contributed something to the match tonight. And, it being in my old gym, it just makes it all the more fun.

"Amy (Barr) is a good friend. I coached her in freshman basketball and in her sophomore volleyball season. Then, she was coaching with me in 2002 when we basically had the core of the team that won state the next year. She's a great coach. I missed her the year after she was gone -- and still do. She does a nice job with her team."

Scheibe was pleased to see Wyman sliding around Vera on occasion to pound the ball at the net.

"Lainey -- that is one of the things she has improved on since last year as a freshman, her agility," Scheibe said. "She's worked on her quickness and she's worked on her jumping ability. And, tonight, she had nine kills on nine attempts, so I can't be too disappointed with that effort."

Brittany Budimier and Claire Randich each added three blocks for JCA. The Angels used a 13-1 scoring run to blow open Game 1 and scored their last two points in Game 2 on plays where the ball went from Keca to Vera to Wyman.

Morris was topped by Rochelle Claire's five assists and two digs. Alexa Rezin had two digs and two assists. Mel Stevens chipped in two kills. Jordan Rinehart had two digs.

"Back when the Quigley sisters were younger, I coached them in their freshman and junior year at JCA -- Allie and Sam," Barr said. "That was awhile ago. But it's still exciting when JCA comes here and it's great to see Chris (Scheibe). When I was in high school, it was always a goal to come back here and coach. We always thought we'd be coaching together.

"Unfortunately, her life path took her that way. I'm excited for her because she's got a great team and has had a lot of success there. So, it's good to see her and we're both coaching. And we did get that opportunity to coach together. Her whole family was like my family in high school. So, to see them and have them watch me coach is kind of like a dream come true."

Barr said she was impressed by JCA's wide array of weapons.

"I felt like they had a really balanced attack," she said. "I didn't feel like any one particularly player was hurting us. They were coming at us from every spot. And they're a great passing team. They showed awesome hustle, everything that hopefully we'll build toward once we get used to playing together. We're 0-2. But we're also a very young team. We're having some growing pains."