The path that Nazareth’s Lauren Salata traveled this season was a rocky one, but it led to a familiar place.
Despite graduating three Division I players from the 2021 Class 3A state championship team, the Roadrunners made it back to the state finals at Redbird Arena in Normal, where they came up just short of a second straight title.
A 25-23, 25-23 loss to Wheaton St. Francis in the championship match on Nov. 12 stung but did nothing to take the luster off a tremendous accomplishment.
“This is a tough one,” Nazareth coach Melissa Masterson said. “You never want to lose, but there’s nothing that I’m not proud of this group to get back to this match when maybe not a lot of people expected us to.
“There are a lot of programs that would love to be here. So I’m just unbelievably proud of these girls and our administration to allow us to do what we need to do to get back to this match.”
Salata was a starter on the 2021 state championship team. Playing outside hitter, she contributed 149 kills, 130 digs, 59 assists, 36 aces and 13 digs, including three kills and 15 digs in a 25-18, 20-25, 25-21 win against Belvidere North in the state final.
But Salata wasn’t one of the team leaders, nor did she have to be. Much of the spotlight was trained on 2021 Gatorade Illinois player of the year Katie Hurta, now a freshman at Penn State, and then-junior Kitty Sandt, a Clemson recruit. Salata was fourth on the team in kills, excelling in a supporting role.
More was required of Salata this season, both physically and emotionally. Masterson wanted the 5-foot-9 junior to be a leader on and off the court.
“We weren’t necessarily expecting her to be a very vocal person,” Masterson said. “That’s not her personality, so it’s very hard to ask someone to change their personality. We were looking for someone to be the point scorer and have the experience and take on that mental part of having a bigger role — setting, passing, hitting, defense — and then off the court helping the younger players get more experience.
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“I don’t know if she had that in club a lot, so this was her true first season of really being looked to as our main offensive person, someone that can set, hit and block. I don’t think it’s easy for anyone, but she embraced it.”
Unfamiliar role
Masterson originally planned to run a 6-2 offense, with Sandt and Salata sharing the setting duties. But Masterson soon switched things up. She had Sandt run a 5-1 offense, which required Salata to take on a greater hitting burden.
“We realized we needed her defensive passing and serve-receive,” Masterson said. “She really stepped up serving and playing defense and scoring points.”
Salata had a monster season, especially offensively. She smashed a team-high 369 kills, 106 more than Sandt, and finished second in aces with 38, third in digs with 229 and third in assists with 96, all while providing great defense and passing as a six-rotation player.
“The leadership in me, it changed from last year, and the outlook on the court is completely different,” Salata said. “Doing everything is pretty hard, and you don’t see a lot of girls doing that, so I’m proud of myself for what I’ve accomplished, and I’m proud of everyone else especially.”
Salata can be proudest of her evolution as a leader. She came out of her shell to help Sandt guide the Roadrunners past significant obstacles and earn their third consecutive state trophy.
Playing a schedule loaded mostly with Class 4A opponents, Nazareth (22-17) began the season 4-10 before getting the ship righted.
“It’s hard for people on the outside to see what these girls did every single day,” Masterson said. “We didn’t focus on record. We just continued to focus on getting better. Every time we put a challenge in front of them, an opportunity to get better, they embraced it and walked in that gym every day and continued to get better.
“They watched film, learned and ultimately believed that they could be here, and they got themselves here.”
Salata helped lead the way through the process.
“Last year I looked up to all the seniors and juniors, and now this year I’m a junior,” Salata said. “I’m an upperclassman, and now it’s my turn to have leadership in me and help everyone else on the team.
“It’s a completely different outlook in the game, running practices, running the games.”
That required an adjustment period.
“It doesn’t come in a day or a week,” Salata said. “It comes in throughout the season, and in the end, it was pretty good.
“In the beginning, I was a little shaky with it. But I talked to the coach, and it’s the experiences that I’ve been in that have helped me get through the hard challenges of becoming a leader, because it can be a struggle for me. I believe I’ve gotten a lot better at it. Toward the end I got the hang of it.”
So did the Roadrunners, who won eight of their last 11 matches in the regular season to get to .500 and then dropped only one set en route to the state championship match.
Sandt said Salata played a crucial role in that run.
“We’ve been playing together since we were 9, so we’ve kind of always had a little connection,” Sandt said. “Our brothers played baseball, too, so our families have kind of been intertwined for a while.
“This year she was really my outlet. She was my go-to. She always had my back. If I had a rough set, I knew I could count on her to do something good with the ball. So I really looked to her on serve-receive, defense, hitting, everything. She was my partner in crime.”
No gain without pain
Sandt marveled at Salata’s ability to plow through obstacles.
The Roadrunners likely would not have advanced to state without that, and Salata could not have performed as well as she did without a high pain tolerance.
“She played injured for 96% of the season, but she never let that get to her,” Sandt said. “She is always confident in herself, and she always had my back. I think from that first match, we counted on each other.”
Salata developed shin splits during club season last winter, and the pain hasn’t gone away. She also dealt with hamstring and knee injuries this season.
The pain was so bad that Masterson didn’t know whether Salata would be able to finish the season.
“At the end of the season, she easily could have given up and said, ‘I can’t do it. I don’t want to play,'” Masterson said. “But she always put her team first and realized the important role that she had. I think she did an awesome job with that role.”
Salata sat out during two easy regional victories to rest her legs and then returned for sectional victories against St. Ignatius and Fenwick. But more pain came in the supersectional against St. Viator.
“We gave her some rest in practice and different treatment options,” Masterson said. “Then she tweaked her hamstring in the St. Viator match.
“She didn’t practice for three days going into state, so we didn’t know her status. It was a lot that she had to handle, and she embraced it and did an awesome job. She showed up for her team at those two matches at state and helped us get that second place.”
Salata had eight kills — one behind Victoria Perez for the team lead — with six digs and an ace as the Roadrunners beat Taylorville 25-19, 25-13 in the semifinals.
She followed that by recording seven kills, two aces and a team-high 10 digs against St. Francis, playing great defense and even attacking from the back row.
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Through it all, the pain remained, although Salata paid it no mind. After the match was a different story.
“The pain, once you’re in the game, with the adrenaline and everything going on in your head, you don’t focus on those things,” she said. “It hurts now because I’m not playing. But during play, you’re just focused on the sport and nothing else.”
So how does Salata continue playing?
“The shins — I’ve gotten used to it,” she said. “I know what to do: Advil, ice, all that. The knee injury was recent, and it still hurts. It probably will for a long time. The shins will probably never go away.”
The shin splints require extended rest. That’s problematic for Salata, who aspires to play in college and is driven to improve. She’ll gladly take the three weeks off before club season begins in December.
“Rest helps,” she said. “I need that rest.”
New challenges await Salata and the Roadrunners, who will be bumped up to Class 4A next season, making the route to Redbird Arena even harder.
But Salata is up for it, and it will prepare her for college.
“She’s very marketable at the next level,” Masterson said. “She can set, she can hit, she can pass, serve, play defense. She could probably be a libero if she wanted to.
“With her ability to do everything and be good at all of it, she provides a lot of strength and assets to any team she’s on. She’ll play at the Division I level. She’s got a lot of interest.”
Salata has a lot of gratitude for her Nazareth coaches, who have encouraged her every step of the way.
“Since my freshman year, it’s been an amazing journey with the coaches,” she said. “They’ve helped me so much, and they will continue to help me, especially going into college.
“(Nazareth) is a really good community, and I love everyone I play with.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.