Benet’s Lauren Barnes shook her head and stared blankly in disbelief at the developments Tuesday night.
She wasn’t alone.
“I don’t know what to say — we’ve never gone down that hard that much late in the season,” said Barnes, the Minnesota-bound senior libero. “They played awesome. I’ve never seen them play that way.”
It added up to a stunning 25-13, 25-22 loss to the host RedHawks in a Class 4A Marist Sectional semifinal.
Indeed, Marist (30-9) lost twice in two games to Benet (32-6) during the regular season, but hardly looked the part.
The RedHawks hit huge spikes left and right. They hit the line on four serves. One serve bounced against the net, then plopped over.
Benet, on its heels from the first point, never found its rhythm.
Senior setter Sara Nielsen, who’s also committed to Minnesota, gave credit to the RedHawks.
“I don’t think we played our best but Marist played a really good match,” Nielsen siad. “They came out and they were ready to play.”
Marist moves on to face top-seeded Mother McAuley in Thursday’s sectional final. Benet, which entered as the winners of five straight sectional titles, saw its earliest playoff exit since 2006.
Lilly Johnson had nine kills, Missouri State recruit Veronica Snelling added eight kills, Barnes had 12 digs and Nielsen contributed 20 assists for Benet.
Megan Krasowski had nine kills and Maggie Meyer added eight for Marist.
The Redwings had three hitters hit at a negative percentage, and seemed off from the start. A hit on the first point of the match sailed long, as did their second attempt.
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It didn’t get better. When Meyer dropped in a pop-fly ace, Marist’s lead ballooned to 18-4 in Game 1. Tied at 15-15 in Game 2, Marist took the lead for good with a 3-0 run.
“If you’re in a hole you need to stop digging, and we just kept digging,” Benet coach Brad Baker said. “We were going against double blocks trying to win games. We should have just been hitting shots, not trying to do too much.”
Benet’s serve-receive, a staple of the program, left the Redwings. Indicative of the match, at 21-18 in the second game, two Benet players ducked to let a Marist serve go long — and it landed just in.
“Serving and serve-receive are usually two of the areas we focus on a lot, and we just didn’t have it,” Nielsen said. “I wish we would have played better, but they came out hard and aggressive.”
The Redwings, though, mounted a valiant rally and nearly forced a Game 3.
Down 23-18, Benet got a sideout on Marist’s net serve, and Snelling followed with back-to-back kills. On the next point, Meyer whistled a ball down the line that was ruled in to protests from the Benet side.
Krasowski then landed a kill for match point.
“I wish we would have had that passion we had the last 10 minutes the whole match,” Baker said. “It was definitely a grind.”
Joshua Welge is a freelance writer for the Naperville Sun.