Faith Christian Academy played its best volleyball of the season thus far against two of its most formidable opponents, showing its potential as a team in sweeping three matches in pool play at the Aurora Central Catholic Eighth-Grade Tournament Friday night. Well done, Falcons!
FCA was one of four schools in its pool of the 12-team tournament. Faith opened the pool with a 25-10, 25-2 victory over St. John the Baptist School of Winfield. Lauren Caprini and Jessica Chiaro combined to go 24 for 24 serving with four aces and 11 service winners, Anneliese Lockner delivered seven assists, and Gigi Crescenzo had five kills.
The Falcons then dug deep to defeat St. Peter and Paul School of Naperville and its rotation of power spikers and jump servers 25-22, 25-22. Both teams played some brilliant volleyball, with the teams exchanging bump-set-spikes back and forth over a dozen times in one hotly contested point. FCA played strong fundamental volleyball throughout the match with excellent serving, good on-court communication, terrific digging, quick hustle to the ball and court coverage, great passing to setter, rock-solid setting and net play, a handful of timely blocks and some big kills on jump tips, jump spikes and downballs. Faith rode standout performances from everyone to a tremendous win over a very good opponent.
After playing back-to-back matches at 5 and 6 p.m., it would have been easy for the Falcons to have a letdown in energy and performance when they played Holy Angels School at 7 p.m. Instead the team fought through any tiredness and knocked off Holy Angels 25-23, 26-24. The Falcons displayed outstanding grit, determination and hustle throughout the match in a match-up of two highly skilled squads who played beautiful volleyball in every phase of the game.
The girls earned the victory behind a gutsy comeback. Trailing 15-4, FCA stiffened its resolve and began chipping away at Holy Angels' lead. The Falcons used stellar serving from Gigi Crescenzo, Meagan Clemens, Nicki Smith and Jessica Chiaro as well as great passing, court coverage, setting and net play to draw even at 21-21. Anneliese pushed Faith ahead with back-to-back serves, and the Falcons concluded pool play with a 6-0 record in sets played.
Thanks to all the supporters who cheered on the team, including Mr. and Mrs. Clapper, former FCA volleyball standout Abby "Cash" Ledwinka (Weeks), FCA basketball and track alumnus Tim Weeks and FCA teammate Paige Petty, who is nursing a broken finger. Your support fueled the team's play today.
FCA will find out its schedule for Sunday's championship bracket late Saturday night after two more four-team pools are completed. Should be an exciting Sunday afternoon in Aurora.
The FCA varsity squad improved to 13-2 on the season. Combined with the JV's 10-1 record, the Falcons are now 23-3 overall. Suddenly equaling or even topping Faith's single-season school record of 35 wins set in 2011 is an outside possibility.
