This one was hard to figure.
Top-seeded Kaneland went from being the hunter to the hunted Tuesday night after losing the first game of the Class 3A Glenbard South Regional semifinals to the host Raiders.
But Bella Rio, a 5-foot-7 senior outside hitter, wasn’t concerned.
“I wasn’t really nervous,” Rio said. “I was more fired up. I was like, ‘I want this ball. I want to put it down right now.’ It was more like motivation.”
A motivated Rio produced seven of her match-high 19 kills in Game 2 and six more in Game 3 as the Knights prevailed 19-25, 25-11, 25-9.
The upstart, upset-minded Raiders came in as the eighth seed and came out strong, building up leads of 8-2, 9-3 and 10-4 as the out-of-sorts Knights struggled.
Glenbard South (12-24) never trailed in winning Game 1. Kaneland (32-3) recovered, though, by forgetting what the Knights saw the day before.
“We came in and watched a little bit of their game Monday and came in a little too confident,” Rio said. “We have to remember that anyone and everyone wants to beat us. We just came out overconfident.”
The win sends Kaneland to a 6 p.m. Thursday championship match against Sycamore, which beat Fenton 25-11, 25-11 in the second semifinal.
The Knights rolled past Glenbard South 25-13, 25-12 in the second match of the regular season. That also likely played a factor.
Senior Meghan O’Sullivan and junior Mia Kane, who have split their time between hitting and setting, also picked it up in Game 2. Kane took on most of the setting responsibilities. O’Sullivan delivered with four kills.
“Mia and I have been working a lot on our connection in practice and out of practice,” Rio said. “She’ll set for two rotations and Meghan one. That’s the whole point because Meghan is a lefty and has a big swing on the right side.”
Kaneland coach Cynthia Violett said her team has been mixing it up between running a 5-1 and a 6-2 offense all season.
“We do that when we want to get some power game going with Meghan,” Violett said of the 6-foot-2 O’Sullivan. “Taking Meghan out from hitting sometimes will hurt us, so we use her to hit.”
It gave the Knights a lift, especially with Ball State commit Maddie Buckley battling in Game 1. The 6-foot-2 Buckley’s first kill, however, cut Glenbard South’s lead to 19-14.
Before that, Buckley had four hitting errors.
“Everyone has an off day, but she picked it up,” Rio said of Buckley, who finished strong with four kills and a pair of blocks in Game 3.
“That is unusual for Maddie,” Violett said. “It got in her head and she got nervous. Taking her out of the back row helped, so she could focus on the front row.”
Senior libero Mackenzie Ewen, who had two aces in the third game, also covered a lot of ground anchoring the Knights’ defense.
Fittingly, Rio closed out the victory with her final kill of the night, giving her four of the team’s final seven points in the match.
“Bella came through,” Violett said. “They’ve all played well and all played a lot of good competition. Bella doesn’t want to give up and definitely did not want to end her season.
“That first game I’m guessing had to have been nerves. You’re not going to win a game giving away 15 unforced errors. There’s no way that’s going to happen. Hopefully, they got it out of their system. I can say, ‘Don’t take anybody lightly’ until I’m blue in the face, but it’s up to them to realize it.”
