Student Section Brings Serious Fandom To McAuley Sectional Win

CHICAGO — You’ve heard of the famed rivalry between the Marist and Brother Rice football teams. The Mother McAuley-Marist sectional Wednesday evening was the girls volleyball version of the Pulaski Road Super Bowl, with the Mighty Macs (33-6) powering past the Marist RedHawks (31-8) in a shutout victory to move on to the super-sectional in their hunt for a 17th IHSA championship, the last in 2016-2017.

McAuley brought some serious fandom to the win-or-go-home 4A girls volleyball sectional. The Mighty Mac student section has adopted a different theme for each game, and on Wednesday, the theme was “Mac Dynasty,” a play on the reality TV series “Duck Dynasty.”

The student section was packed to the highest bleacher with girls decked out in camo and ZZ Top beards. “Dynasty” turned out to be an appropriate theme, with sophomore McAuley outside hitter Ellie White stunning Marist with 14 kills, seven digs and three blocks. White is a once in a generation player, who earned the compliment of a “1-percent” player from Mighty Mac coach Jen DeJarld.

“There are very few — a 1% type of person who can take instruction, not even practice it, understand it and do it,” DeJarld told Southtown.

McAuley’s Peyton Brokemond added eight kills and Mary Kate Sheehan had five, while Caroline Macander contributed 28 assists and eight digs and Gigi Navarrete made 16 digs.

McAuley trounced a flat Marist team in game one, 25-10. The second game, McAuley fell behind to Marist 16-7, only to come from behind and tie the game up at 23-23, willed by their camo-clad classmates. Caroline Macander’s tip for kill broke the tie, giving McAuley a 25-23 win -- and the sectional.

Mother McAuley will play host to Willbrook (37-1) Friday, Nov. 5, in the super- sectional, the winner of which will head to Illinois State University’s RedBird Arena for the state finals.

We can hardly wait to see what crazy theme the Mighty Mac student section comes up with on Friday. The game starts at 6 p.m.