JACKSONVILLE — The Springfield High volleyball team earned itself an off day, coach Bill Sturm said, with the Senators’ exhausting — but thrilling — three-set win over Jacksonville on Thursday.
Springfield trailed the third set 4-0 before rallying to beat Jacksonville 25-16, 19-25, 25-22 in the Class 3A Jacksonville Regional championship game at the JHS Bowl. It was sophomore outside hitter Lucy Ambrose who came through with the final two kills for the Senators.
“It honestly feels so great,” said SHS’ senior middle hitter Jocelyn Anderson, who had three blocks. “I know I’m going to cry when I get home. This is such a great feeling.
“My team is such a great team and has so much potential. I’m just so glad that we could get this win.”
No. 2 seeded Springfield High (24-9) will face No. 1 Normal U-High in the Southeast Sectional semifinals at Herb Scheffler Gymnasium on Tuesday. The Pioneers (32-4) beat Springfield High 25-12, 25-24 in the only previous meeting this season, back on Sept. 4. U-High won the Bloomington Regional title by beating the host Purple Raiders 25-12, 25-10, also on Thursday.
“U-High is definitely going to be a tough one, but hopefully we can rest up this weekend, and then come back and fight just as hard as we did tonight,” SHS senior outside hitter Rachel Becker said.
Instead of donning practice uniforms, Sturm said he was going to let his players take the day off on Halloween in light of the Senators’ third three-set match of the season.
“Tomorrow’s Halloween,” Sturm said. “Their minds are not going to be in it. They’re teenage girls; sometimes they need that break — mentally and physically — especially after tonight.”
Strong start, strong finish
Springfield High got out to leads of 4-1 and 8-4 in the opening set before Jacksonville mounted a five-point rally, but sophomore outside hitter Lucy Ambrose had a kill, Rachel Becker had two and Ambrose had a pair of aces as Springfield High regained its composure and a 14-10 lead. Angel Efe-Nogo helped the Senators with four kills down the stretch to win the first set fairly easily.
It was the third time this season Springfield High and Jacksonville met. The Senators won all three matches, but they got tighter each time.
“I would say we just wanted to approach it kind of the same as normal, like come out very strong, because we’ve already played them multiple times before,” said Becker, a senior outside hitter. “Obviously, they’re going to know our strategy, so just play like we normally do, but still keep up the energy, and just play 100% all the time.”
Becker, who sports a powerful hitting game, finished with a team-high 16 kills. Ambrose and Efe-Nogo finished with eight and six, respectively.
“I would say we were a very scrappy team, and so was Jacksonville,” Becker added. “It was such a fun game, just lots of energy happening.”
The deciding third set remained tight throughout until junior right-side hitter Kate Havenar had one of her three kills on the night to bread the deadlock for good as SHS took a 16-15 lead. After the Crimsons called timeout down 20-16, Maci Moore had a kill and a service ace to get the team back within 20-18, but Havenar stole the momentum with her final kill.
The timing of Havenar’s heroics didn’t surprise Sturm.
“The thing I can tell you about Kate, she is my x-factor,” Sturm said. “She may only get set three or four times a game, but it’s always in crucial situations and she always comes through. Last game in regionals, she got set four times (and) had four kills. I mean, she is the x-factor that you have to have on a team like this.”
Havenar provides the Senators with a luxury.
“It’s nice to have that extra, because we have some good hitters,” Sturm said. “Obviously, we’re pushing it outside a lot, but you’ve got to have those that go, ‘I’m only going to get a few chances, but I’m going to make the most of them.’”
Addi Maddox led the Senators with 19 assists while Franny Von De Bur had 17. Ambrose had five digs and three aces while Ainsley Lambert also had five digs.
It was the 11th regional title in Springfield High history, but the first since 2021.
Fought to the end
The dean of Central State Eight Conference volleyball coaches, Jacksonville’s Gary Hickox remained proud of his team’s recent improvement and effort during the postseason. Though the fifth-seeded Crimsons finished 16-20, he knows they didn’t play like a sub-.500 team, especially after an 18-25, 25-20, 25-19 upset over No. 3 Sacred Heart-Griffin on Tuesday and giving SHS everything it could handle two nights later.
“We have gotten better in the last week, which is the perfect time to get better,” Hickox said. “We had everything clicking Tuesday night. We felt real good coming in here tonight, just kind of got on our heels that first set. Bounced back — which we were super proud of the girls. Bouncing back like that, after (scoring just 16 points in the first set). Then point for point there in the third set, it was just nerve-wracking to me.”
Jacksonville jumped out to a 7-2 lead in the second set before Sturm called timeout, and the Crimsons never stopped. After JHS pushed its lead to 20-10, the Senators clawed within 22-16 and 23-18 before Hickox used a timeout to calm down the Crimsons.
In the third set, kills by Jera Wardell, Sophia Withee and Emma Guidish, along with a SHS violation, put Jacksonville up 4-0 as they sensed an upset was possible. Springfield High put together a rally to tie it 5-5 and the two teams stayed in a tight contest until Becker gave SHS a 20-16 lead. JHS got within 23-22, but Ambrose put the win away for the Senators.
“They started swinging a little bit more, actually,” Hickox said of SHS. “They were kind of trying to do the soft stuff on us, and we knew that was going to come. We’d watched enough film on them, and we knew if they got out of system a little bit, they wouldn’t try to swing very much.
When they started getting better passes on us and they were able to swing, their big hitters were able to swing, and we got touches, we got blocks, but, we weren’t perfect with technique and the ball was flying out of bounds.”
Here are other volleyball regional final results in Class 3A around Springfield:
Mount Zion Regional
No. 2 Taylorville 25-26, No. 3 Mount Zion 18-24: Alayna Vincent topped the Tornadoes with 11 kills to go with eight digs as Taylorville won the regional title. Ryan Prince led with 12 assists and Molly Smith compiled 10 assists, six digs and three aces. Robyn Ward added seven kills and two blocks, and Taylorville (32-5) moves on to face No. 1 seed Breese Mater Dei at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at the Troy Triad Sectional semifinals.
Jerseyville Regional
Top-seeded Chatham Glenwood swept past No. 4 Troy Triad 25-9, 25-11 to claim its third straight regional. Glenwood (31-6) meets No. 2 Mascoutah in the semifinals of the Troy Triad Sectional at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. … At the Lincoln Regional, fourth seed Lincoln lost to No. 1 Morton 25-12, 25-18 in the title match. Morton plays Normal Community West in the semifinals of the Southeast Sectional at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. Lincoln finished 21-16.
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR. Staff writer Trevor Lawrence contributed to this story.