Non-seniors prevail, 28-26, vs. seniors in wildly entertaining girls volleyball match at Maroon & Gold scrimmage

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

If Friday’s Maroon & Good holds up as an accurate model of what lies ahead, then the Chesterton gymnasium will brim with passion from the court to the stands and back this season.
Both teams in the first set, which pit the seniors against the non-senior varsity players, looked capable of holding their own in varsity action, so when that talent is combined, look out.
Plus, the crowd was big, and it was loud for a 4 p.m. start, which made it impossible for some to attend, which projects for well-attended games.
It didn’t hurt it went into extra play with the score tied, 25-25. The youngsters pulled out the victory, 28-26, which meant nothing in the standings because it was an intrasquad scrimmage and everything in the bragging-rights battle.
And it was even closer than that since Reese Dilbeck, the leader of the sophomore class, got away with scoring a point on an illegal back-row attack that went unnoticed.
“I’m not actually (surprised at the loss,” senior Tenley Davis, a two-time All-DAC performer bound for Loyola University of Chicago on a volleyball scholarship. “We have such a good team that I knew no matter how we split it it was going to be close.”
Davis, an outside hitter, setter Abby Parrish and libero Ryliegh Connor stood out, but so did the other team’s three players who play the same positions: junior Luca Bombacino, Dilbeck, and sophomore Delaney Barrett. Plus, junior Madison Gilliam, the team’s tallest player, had a big game.
As for how long the seniors will hear about this from the victors, Dilbeck said, “It’s going to keep going for a long time.”
Said Davis: “It’s a good thing I’m not up here in a year.”
Countered Dilbeck: “I’ll still text you.”
Both talented players agreed on which two teammates have made the biggest improvements since the end of last season, when Chesterton won its second sectional title and first since before falling from ahead vs. Penn to get eliminated in the regional round.
“I want to go with Delaney Barrett. I think from when I saw her last year to this year, she goes for everything and wants to get the ball up no matter what. It’s crazy. At Purdue camp, I was like, ‘Wow!’ She’s improved a lot,” Davis said.
Dilbeck agreed and added that Barrett’s progress is especially impressive “because she was on JV last year. Now she’s here working hard.”
Davis also spoke to Gilliam’s improvement: “She’s another one who I think has improved immensely. Her hitting has gotten a lot better and blocking. She’s solid. She stuffed me, so that was not nice. I was like, ‘Hey, do it to the other team, not me.’”
Again, Dilbeck agreed.