Wilmington season ends in sectional final loss to Chicago Christian

MANTENO – The Wilmington girls volleyball team's chase for its first sectional title since 2008 came up short on Thursday night. The Wildcats had their season end with a 2-0 loss to Chicago Christian in the IHSA Class 2A Manteno Sectional Championship, losing both sets 25-20.

Ending the season with a final record of 27-9, the Wildcats have won more than 20 games in consecutive seasons after failing to reach 20 in every season since 2009. They also claimed their first regional title since 2015 and became the first team in program history to complete a perfect conference season, going 14-0 against Illinois Central Eight Conference opponents.

Although the team had certainly hoped to win the sectional, head coach Kelly Van Duyne said that this group of players has succeeded in establishing a high standard for the program going forward.

"I told them that they set the bar very high for the teams to follow," she said. "No Wilmington volleyball team had ever gone undefeated in conference. We set that.

"We haven't had this good of a record in years," she added. "They've set the bar really, really high. Now there's just unfinished business and we're focused for next year."

The first set of Thursday's game saw Wilmington fall behind 3-0, but the Wildcats then rallied to take a 5-3 lead and flip the early momentum. Including a tie at 3-3, the set was tied a total of 10 times and featured four lead changes. Wilmington had a relatively late lead at 17-15 before Chicago Christian rattled off a 7-0 run to claim a lead it would not relinquish.

Wilmington took a quick 2-0 lead in the second set, but once the Knights battled back to take a 6-5 lead, the Wildcats were unable to tie the score or take the lead again. They got within two points a few times, with the latest instance being at 19-17, but ultimately dropped the set by five points.

Van Duyne said that the team just was unable to execute on things they normally have under control, and with the stakes and level of competition higher at this point of the season, those miscues proved costly.

"We made mistakes that we haven't made all year," she said. "Whether it's the jitters getting to them or the hype, we needed to minimize our mistakes and we didn't. [Chicago Christian] capitalized on it. They're a good team and we knew that coming in, and it is what it is."

The team's senior class of Skylar Knight, Cole Drown, Maggie Lindsey and Reese Van Duyne had their time with the program come to an end Thursday. All four contributed to the effort and made plays on Thursday, with Knight surpassing 500 digs on the season with her team-high 20 in the game.

Three seasons ago, which was the first season for Kelly Van Duyne as head coach, the Wildcats went 15-18 overall and 6-8 in conference play. Those marks improved to 23-10 overall and 11-3 in conference last season before reaching the 27-9 overall record and 14-0 conference record this season.

Kelly Van Duyne said that the group of seniors, although relatively small, helped set the culture for the team that she believes has resulted in their success.

"We really just focus on the team as a whole and not individual players, and I think that's what they focused on," she said. They believe in each other, they're sisters and we're one big family. I think that carries us very far.

"When you think like that and you know you're playing with family, the wins are a lot easier to get."

The Wildcats will be returning a large number of key contributors from this team, including Thursday's kill leader Rachel Smith and assist leader Molly Southall, both juniors this season. They will help lead a 2025 team that Kelly Van Duyne thinks will be eager to bounce back after coming up a little bit short of where they wanted to wind up this season.

"They're going to be hungry and they're going to be mad," she said. "We wanted to go far and we haven't won a sectional since 2008. I know they're going to come back even more hungry... They got a taste of coming so close, so I just feel like they're going to push themselves even further next year."

Knight led the team with 20 digs, surpassing 500 for the season in the process. Smith had eight digs to go with a team-high seven kills while Southall had five kills and a team-high 12 assists. Lindsey had three kills, three digs and three blocks.