Pennington Proves Mighty For JCA

CHICAGO – It began at the end of the second set and carried over to the end of the third set. So, how long has Joliet Catholic Academy senior Hailey Pennington been waiting for a moment like this?

“A long time,” Pennington said, smiling from ear to ear. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

The wait was over Thursday night as the Angels traveled to Mother McAuley in the season opener for both powerhouse volleyball programs. And Pennington’s punctuation was an exclamation point.

The 6-foot middle hitter exploded with 5 attack kills and 4 block kills in Game 3 alone as JCA jumped out to whopping leads of 5-0, 14-6 and 22-10 en route to a 25-22, 22-25, 25-11 nonconference victory.

While Loyola-bound senior outside Kelly Feigh finished with 13 kills, 10 points and 6 digs for JCA (1-0), Pennington picked up 10 kills and 5 block kills in proving her Division I-worthy ability. Meanwhile, Loyola-bound junior outside Morgan Reardon added 10 kills and 4 block kills.

But the pendulum swing belonged to Pennington, who was a postseason callup for the 2009 Class 3A state champions before becoming a spot starter for last year’s 3A state runnersup and setting the stage.

It’s her time.

“I was itching to get on the floor last year, and I loved it when I got my chances,” Pennington said. “I felt like I owned that third game tonight, but I couldn’t have done it without the rest of the girls. We were all working for each other and we’ve played like that since our freshman (undefeated) year together.”

“At one of the timeouts, I mentioned that we were not getting the ball to our middles enough,” JCA coach Christine Scheibe said. “Once we got Hailey involved in the process, she was hitting balls left and right and blocking balls left and right. She really gave us that final push that we needed to win.”

Despite five missed serves in Game 1, JCA broke free from the fifth of six ties for a 16-12 lead on the strength of a pair of solo block kills by Evansville-bound senior setter/right-side hitter Lauren Robertson and back-to-back kills by Reardon. After McAuley forced a 21-21 tie, Reardon slammed two kills.

“I like the pressure and I like the opportunity to finish off a game,” Reardon said. “You get that feeling when you know, ‘Yeah, I’m going to put this ball away.’ I was like, ‘Lauren, set me.’ She set me, I got the kills and it felt so good. We were sad we lost the second game, but we got our revenge in the third.”

First, Pennington split the block, went cross court and skimmed a ball across the tape for kills in Game 2 to get the Angels within 22-21. Reardon’s kill created a 22-22 tie. Although JCA lost that set, the Angels came out with a Pennington block, a Pennington kill and a Feigh kill for a 5-0 lead that was rock solid.

Was it worth the wait?

“It’s pretty awesome,” Pennington said. “After losing to McAuley last year, we were a bit apprehensive, but we knew how much we wanted to win, and to do it on such good terms makes it all the better.”

Afterward, Scheibe pointed out she could not have asked for a better effort from senior libero Jill Hickey, who contributed 8 digs – several of the spectacular variety. Robertson totaled 20 set assists and senior setter/right-side Emily Schoenstedt notched 4 kills, 7 assists and a team-high 15 digs.

JCA entered the match ranked fifth by the Chicago Tribune. McAuley was ranked fourth.

“I think Emily and Jill brought up some incredible balls,” Scheibe said. “We want the girls to get touches to give us a chance, and when we did that against their firepower, we were able to step it up and put our swings away. And I thought Kelly Feigh played like a senior and was big when we needed her."