Chesterton’s historic girls volleyball season ends with 3-2 loss to Crown Point in the LaPorte regional

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Momentum, such a powerful force in sports, perhaps more so in volleyball than any other, creeps into the minds and bloodstreams, the lungs and visual systems of the athletes in the arena. It can change everything. The trick comes in changing it back.
The momentum in the LaPorte regional pitting DAC co-champs Chesterton and Crown Point against each other shifted to Crown Point early in the fourth set and the Trojans never could regain it.
The Bulldogs advanced, coming from behind to win, 3-2, defeating the Trojans 19-25, 25-23, 24-26, 25-18, 15-11 Saturday.
A match that featured so many highs achieved by the Trojans and such great support from the crowd ended in tears and a four-year climb to prominence had ended.
The careers of four-year varsity players Tenley Davis and Abby Parrish and first-year head coach Lindsay Nibert started with a 16-17 record, then 22-12, then 25-10 and the school’s first sectional championship since 1977. This season it reached new heights with a 30-5 record, a DAC co-championship, the slaying of long losing streaks to Crown Point (35 matches) and Lake Central (25 matches), and another sectional championship.
The better the book, the harder it is to close the last page.
“It was everything I could have asked for,” Parrish said of her Chesterton volleyball experience. “These girls are definitely my best friends, without a doubt. I know that these relationships I made through this team will carry on through the rest of my life.”
Parrish will continue her education at Wayne State University, an NCAA Division II school in Detroit.
Parrish shared her thoughts on what turned the match.
“I think our own mistakes,” she said. “I feel like once we made those mistakes, we got down on ourselves and at some point we couldn’t come back.”
Parrish set the career school record for assists, many of them to Davis, the school record-holder for career and single-season kills. Davis, a talented, intense, spirited leader of the Trojans, heads to Loyola of Chicago on a volleyball scholarship.
Not many schools can lose two such decorated players and bring back a pair of skywalkers who have committed to Division I schools: outside hitter Luca Bombacino (Michigan) and middle blocker Maddie Gilliam (Butler), both of whom provided loud highlights when Chesterton appeared to be in control of the match Saturday.
The Trojans came out on fire, especially Bombacino, and took the first set 25-19, then the Bulldogs evened the match, scoring the final five points of the second set.
Chesterton regained the lead in the third set with Bombacino and Gilliam leading the way late to win the set 26-24.
The Trojans came out strong in the fourth set, triggering a loud “Let’s go Trojans!” chant from the upper deck. They took an 8-4 lead, and at that point it was difficult not to stare at unhatched eggs and start counting chickens. The first regional title in school history appeared to be drawing closer. At that point in the match, Crown Point junior outside hitter Camryn Hadt, watched from the bench, an ice pack on her left shoulder, her arm in a sling, injured in the middle of the previous set. Might her absence be too much for the Bulldogs to overcome? No.
Defense tends not to go in slumps in sports and when not presented with impossibly difficult shots to return, the Bulldogs found a way to make such strong first passes, setting things in motion. The Bulldogs’ back row ruled the night.
Serve receiving, an old Achilles heel for the Trojans, resurfaced and proved the difference in the night.
If every contest has an unsung hero, it wasn’t difficult to identify that athlete in this one. It was junior back-row player Hayden Klimowicz. The Trojans had difficulty handling her serves, couldn’t turn them into quality first passes, and flipped from an aggressive team to a defensive one. During Klimowicz’s decisive stretch serving, the Bulldogs scored nine consecutive points to take a 17-11 lead that turned into a 25-18 outcome that forced a fifth set, when the
Bulldogs took a 5-0 lead and never trailed. Chesterton cut the lead to 7-5 and 12-10 but never drew closer.
Nibert summed up the difference between when Chesterton was in control of the match and when it turned: “We lost a little bit of consistency, struggled a little bit in serve receive and then I think that rattled us to the point where we couldn’t be as aggressive-minded as we wanted to be, started making too many errors here and there.”
That didn’t change the coach’s view of the season as a whole.
“It was a really good season. It was a really amazing season and that was something to be proud about,” she said.
It was the final Chesterton match for six players: Ryleigh Connor, Davis, Peyton Ello, Elaina Markwart, Parrish and Brooke Williams. Seven players on the postseason roster return: current juniors Bombacino and Gilliam, sophomores Delaney Barrett, Reese Dilbeck and Taylor Moore, and freshmen Chloe Murzyn and Audriana Roach.
Murzyn responded well to extended playing time Saturday and will be a key player next season and beyond.
“All the seniors, they’ve become some of my best friends,” Bombacino said through the tears. “Even though we didn’t win at the end, it’s been a great season. We made a lot of history, and I’m really proud of us these last few years.”
Now it’s on Bombacino and Gilliam to show the way.
“I’m looking forward to it a lot,” Bombacino said. “I’m excited. It’s going to feel a little empty without the seniors, but I’m excited. The whole DAC is going to be shifting, so it’ll be good for us.”
Crown Point loses four seniors, including Division I-bound players Elle Schara (Purdue), an outside hitter, and libero Bella Del Real (Southern Illinois).
It was the seventh regional title in school history for Crown Point and the sixth since Alison Duncan became the coach in 2015 and flipped the program’s momentum.
“They’re a really well-coached program,” Nibert said. “It will be interesting to see where things go from here on. It’s hard to say what it’ll be next year. It’ll be fun, whatever it is.”