Yorkville Volleyball Ready To Dig Into New Season

You can only accomplish so much in practice.

Sometimes it takes a little something extra to achieve success.

That’s what the girls volleyball team is hoping occurs this fall. The Lady Foxes dedicated themselves throughout the summer, sacrificing their mornings on Tuesdays and Thursdays by sweating it out with strength and conditioning programming as well as on Thursday evenings playing in a summer league at the Great Lakes Center in Aurora.

The team also has four starters returning, Yorkville coach Mike Dunn said.

“We lost a couple key seniors who will be tough to replace," Dunn said. "But we have some good juniors coming up and getting better, and have our usual high expectations of improving everyday and trying to win the next match.”

Juniors Julia Craig and Rebecca Nauman, and seniors Kendall Moses and Jordan Dhuse, all return for the Lady Foxes while newcomer Lindsay Kring is expected to contribute right away. Junior Brittany Straznickas, who was also expected to be a returning starter and had been practicing with the team in the pre-season, has left the team.

“Lindsay will be a strong middle for us,” Dunn said. “She really improved a lot from last year and was hurt early last year but had a strong summer. We have a nice mix of other players.”

Moses has been playing varsity volleyball since the day she first stepped into high school. She hopes to bring her experience and leadership to the team as a senior, especially with many new faces trying to fulfill roles.

“I think we are going to focus on everything as a team, especially because we have juniors coming up who weren’t with us last year,” she said. “We’ve got to push ourselves hard, win as many games as we can and go as far as we can.”

It also means taking care of opponents as quickly as possible. Yorkville should have enough talent to win a good share of its matches, but will need to play aggressively and deliver the knockout punch.

“A big goal for us to is finish most of our matches in two games instead of three,” Nauman said. “It would be very good if we can beat some of them in two games.”

One area Yorkville certainly hopes to improve is in conference play where it went 3-6 last fall.

“Our conference is tough. Sycamore is always good and Kaneland, DeKalb, Rochelle and Morris are all competitive,” Dunn said. “We’re excited to improve and see how far we’ve come from last year and just hope to keep getting better.”

Lady Foxes Win Opener

Yorkville won its season opener Monday, beating Sandwich 25-15, 25-14.

Nauman led the way with five kills, five assists and four aces. Dhuse had seven kills and an ace, Nikki Fulco recorded nine assists and Megan Klaus finished with three aces.

"I thought we came out with great intensity and energy and played solid volleyball," Dunn said. "We have to continue to improve everyday in practice and matches."

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