Mother McAuley’s chance for a three-peat of winning the ASICS Challenge was halted in the semifinals.
But the third-place match was no disappointment.
The host Mighty Macs took third in the tournament by beating rival Marist for the second time in 10 days, 25-20, 25-19 on Oct. 5.
The two teams met on Sept. 26 with McAuley pulling off a 26-24, 25-23 win.
Notre Dame Academy out of Park Hills, Ky., beat Skutt Catholic of Omaha 25-18, 25-16 to win its first ASICS tournament.
McAuley, which is 19-3 with all three losses to out-of-state teams, was hoping to be just the second team in tournament history to win three straight. Louisville Assumption accomplished that feat from 2007-2009.
“Listen, I’m happy any time we finish in the top four in this tournament,” McAuley coach Jenny DeJarld said. “The teams that we have here are the strongest in the nation and I feel like it’s an incredibly tough tournament and we only had one loss in the tournament. That’s a great accomplishment.”
Sydney Buchanan, the only area player to make it to the six-member all-tournament team, led McAuley with eight kills against Marist while Peyton Heatherly had 16 assists and Lucy Maloney added 11 digs.
Marist (18-8) hit a lull during a season playing a killer schedule. The RedHawks dropped seven of their previous 12 matches heading into an Oct. 8 match against Benet.
Northwestern-bound Bella Bullington returned to the lineup after an injury kept her out for more than a month. She had nine kills against McAuley and 35 for the tournament. Savannah Weathers had five kills against the Mighty Macs and Maddie Berry added 16 assists.
Buchanan said playing Marist in the third-place game was a good challenge after being beaten by Skutt, 21-25, 25-19, 25-23 in an intense semifinal match.
“It’s always a challenging match and it can help us as a team mentally and physically,” she said of playing Marist. “It was great for us to have that challenge this weekend.”
As for the semifinal? That match could have gone either way.
“We need to stay consistent with our energy,” Buchanan said. “Our blocking needs to be better, too. That will definitely be something we will be working on in practice.”
Long time between titles
Evergreen Park won its first tournament championship since 2008 when the Mustangs won the Tinley Park tournament on Oct. 5.
The Mustangs did not drop a set to Bremen, Crete-Monee, Oak Forest or Rich South to win the tournament and improve to 19-4.
Neve Hayes had 61 assists 20 kills and six blocks for EP while Fiona Buchanan had 29 kills and 12 saves, Bridget Hayes had 14 kills and five blocks, Maddie Bruno had 49 digs and eight aces and Julia Ohare had 11 kills and five aces.
