State run begins for St. Mary's volleyball

The St. Mary’s eighth grade volleyball team is looking for success this weekend at the state tournament to be held at Kankakee Bishop Mac High School.

An exciting sectional win at Pontiac Monday night led to the state appearance.

“The gym was completely packed,” recalls coach Jill Francis. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that many people in the gym at hone time. It was a pretty cool atmosphere for them.”

The Saints will battle Peoria Limestone Walters at 7 p.m. Friday. Francis feels they will be a good team to play.

“We, I think, are a stronger team at this point in time,” Francis said.

St. Mary’s has a very strong serving team as their overall serving percentage for the whole year is 93 percent. This helps the Saints tremendously which makes other teams struggle when trying to pass the ball. St. Mary’s also has a very good passing team as they can usually get underneath most of the balls the other teams serve.

There is quite a history behind this team. As sixth graders, they played on the seventh grade team and won second in the state. Then they were able to win the state championship during their seventh-grade year. This year, there is only one loss and it was to a good team.

“We’ve had a little bit of up and down with kids being sick and some little things that have happened here or there, but they have fought back every time something has happened,” notes Francis.

Should the Saints win Friday evening, they play at 12:15 p.m. Saturday and if they win that game, they will play for the championship. Should they lose Saturday, St. Mary’s will play for third place.