Riley Borrowman may have been under the weather, but this girl was on fire.
A 6-foot middle hitter and the only senior starter in Oswego coach Gary Mosley’s lineup, Borrowman wasn’t ready to call it a season or a career Monday, even if she wasn’t 100%.
“I was not feeling good,” Borrowman said. “I’m drugged up right now. My body hurts, my throat, my head and my ears hurt, but I feel better than what I felt (Sunday).
“I just wanted to play my heart out because my team needed me to block. I just focused on my blocking and hitting. When there was an opening, I tried to make the most out of it.”
That’s what she did.
Borrowman matched 6-1 junior outside hitter Sidney Hamaker with a team-high seven kills, but the Panthers dropped a 25-23, 25-18 decision to Lockport in a Class 4A Oswego Sectional semifinal.
The win sends the second-seeded Porters (29-9) to the 6 p.m. Wednesday championship match against top-seeded Joliet West (35-3), which held off fifth-seeded Lincoln-Way West 25-23, 26-24 in the other semifinal.
Oswego (29-7) was seeded third and set the program’s single-season record for wins, reaching the sectional for the first time since 2011.
Borrowman, a Wisconsin-Oshkosh commit, added two blocks.
“Our passing was not the greatest, but they’re good servers,” she said. “Props to them.”
Kelsey Foster, a 5-8 junior right-side hitter, had six kills and two blocks for the Panthers. Mia Jurkovic, a 6-0 junior outside hitter, added five kills and two blocks.
Junior setter Ava Flanigan felt Oswego couldn’t find its groove.
“We didn’t get into a rhythm,” Flanigan said. “I think there was a lot of pressure on this game and we kind of let it get in our heads.
“It was a pretty good year. I wish the end was better. Riley did great (Monday), but we just couldn’t get momentum.”
Twelve errors in each game proved costly for the Panthers.
“We made service errors when we got the ball back, never got on a run and made some silly mistakes,” said Hamaker, a Long Beach State commit.
After the tight first game, the teams were tied 10-10 in the second but the Porters went on an 11-4 run to take control.
“That really cost us — you could see us start to fizzle a little bit,” Mosley said. “We had a really good rhythm closing that first set, but serve receive at the end of it really put us in trouble.
“We became very predictable. That’s what we talk about doing to other teams, making them predictable. That was a little taste of our own medicine.”
Oswego graduates only three seniors and brings most everybody back, but Lockport also had a young team on the floor.
Sophomore Bridget Ferriter, a 6-1 outside hitter, led the Porters with a match-high 11 kills and 6-2 freshman middle Kyla Mitchell tallied four kills and two blocks.
Passing problems were the key, according to Mosley.
“Passing plays into setting, setting plays into hitting, and if you’re not doing the first pass, the other two can’t work well,” he said. “That’s just how the game is played.”
The regional title, however, allowed Oswego to put a sticker on the team’s board that highlights program accomplishments in the adjacent hallway.
“We’ll come back next year, looking for more,” Mosley said.
Borrowman plans to keep tabs on them.
“We need to get further than this,” she said. “I just want to see the program succeed because we haven’t in so long.”
Her efforts this night did not go unnoticed.
“You could tell she was in it,” Mosley said of Borrowman. “For her to come out and give that effort was tremendous. I was happy to see her play her heart out in her last game.
“I wish I could have gotten her one more.”