Some things never seem to change.
Many of the faces in the lineup are new, but Kaneland remains in the thick of things at the midway point of the Northern Illinois Big 12 East season. The defending champion Knights, who have battled Yorkville down to the final regular match to decide the conference title three straight years, appear to be on a collision course toward that finale with the Foxes once again.
Kaneland, Yorkville and DeKalb are tied for first in the conference, all with one loss.
Helping lead the way for Kaneland is junior outside hitter Katie Jablonski, a six-rotation player who is in her third year on varsity. Jablonski and junior libero Julianna Vassallo are the only returning starters from 2016, when the Knights (33-5) won a Class 3A regional title.
Kaneland coach Cyndi Violett sat down with Jablonski before the season to discuss the player’s role.
“I’m just a very loud, energetic person so like last year I could be a little goofy in practice and kind of mess around,” Jablonski said. “(Violett) said, ‘You’re an upperclassman now, you’re a leader to these girls,’ so during practice, I try to be more focused and lead.”
Trying to take that “get serious” message to heart, Jablonski is carrying game averages of 3.2 kills and 3.5 digs for the Knights (18-5), who have won tournament titles at Champaign Centennial and Pontiac.
“She’s a really good player,” Violett said of Jablonski. “She’s got a lot of talent. It’s getting her focused. I let her know that she can stay where she’s at and be good, or work really hard and be great.”
Jablonski would like to take it to the next level, and hopes to play beach volleyball in college.
This year, the Knights move in class to 4A for the playoffs.
“I went into the season not knowing what to expect because we had graduated most of our starting lineup,” Jablonski said. “But I think we’ve been jelling pretty well. Because we’re young, we’re making little mistakes I think we need to pick up. But by the end of the season we should be in good shape.”
The Knights topped LaSalle-Peru in three sets to win the title at Pontiac. Last week, the Cavaliers came to Kaneland for a conference crossover match and returned the favor, winning in three, 25-23, 16-25, 25-20.
“We had control of the first game and they started blocking us and we lost our composure,” Violett said. “That’s what happens with a young team, instead of staying composed and playing the next ball, finding the holes and trusting your teammates to tell you where to hit the ball.”
It happened again in the third set, after the Knights dominated the second.
“Yeah, we kind of freaked out there,” Jablonski said.
Despite the turnover in personnel, Violett had high expectations and felt her team could again challenge in conference.
“There are some pretty young teams in the league,” she said. “When you’re young, you’re a little inconsistent getting together and playing as a team. We’ve been up and down.”
Jablonski thinks the Knights can reach an even keel.
“We’re getting comfortable,” she said. “A lot of us have grown up together. We know what to do, there’s just some times we kind of forget. Our biggest thing, I think, is finding a constant. Because we’re so young, I think we have a lot of emotion. We need to be controlled the whole game.”
Twitter @RickArmstrong28