In recent years, despite great seasons, NDCL's volleyball team has had difficulty winning on Senior Night. They even refer to it as the Senior Night Curse.
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In recent years, despite great seasons, NDCL’s volleyball team has had difficulty winning on Senior Night. They even refer to it as the Senior Night Curse.
However, the curse was broken this year as seniors Sara Breland, Caitlyn Cvitkovic, Jamie Graham, Lauren Janosy, Caroline Jurevicius, Sofia Lecesse and Sophia Morano led the Lions to a 3-0 victory over the 19th-ranked Marlington Dukes.
“We just came into the match thinking OK, we need to break the streak,” said Jurevicius, “and I am pretty proud of the team and how they responded in order to do that.”
Added Head Coach Tom Ray, “It was a great overall victory for our team. Senior Night is always a pretty special night; you never really know what you’re going to get because you get a ton of energy, a ton of emotion.
“We’re losing seven seniors this year, and they’ll all have a special place here at NDCL. So obviously we were pretty emotionally charged, but I thought the girls really played for one of their injured teammates, and you know they took care of business tonight.”
Certainly Jurevicius, the NCAA Division I University of Nebraska recruit, was a main reason that the 10th-ranked Lions were able to break the Senior Night Curse. For the match, Jurevicius had an incredible offensive performance with 15 kills in 32 attempts for a .46 kill percentage.
“Caroline is a special kid,” Ray said. “She is like a once-in-a-lifetime coaching experience, and I have been blessed because I have had a lot of really good kids. But she is a phenomenal athlete, a phenomenal competitor, and she is even a better teammate and person. Probably the most humble kid I have ever coached. Just handles her business and does it in a way where you know she respects her team more than herself and she is going to take that on to Nebraska and do amazing things.”
With Jurevicius leading the way, the Lions won set one 25-17, set two 25-11, and set three 25-21.
The Lions also received standout performances from Janosy (8 kills, 2 aces), Emma Blankenship (8 kills), Cvitkovic (3 kills), Ava Jurevicius (5 aces), Marisa Brock (5aces, 17 assists) and Grace Daniels (22 assists).
Defensively the Lions were led in blocking by Cvitkovic (5 blocks), Caroline Jurevicius (2 blocks), Blankenship (2 blocks) and Breland (1 block), and in digging by Morano (17 digs), Caroline Jurevicius (12 digs), Ava Jurevicius (8 digs), Daniels (6 digs) and Brock (5 digs).
For the season the Lions have been led offensively by Jurevicius (272 kills), Janosy (99 kills) and Blankenship (81 kills). Season assist leaders include Daniels (317 assists) and Brock (308 assists).
Leading the Lions in serving aces this season are Blankenship (31 aces), Brock (31 aces) and Ava Jurevicius (24 aces).
Defensively for the season the Lions have been led in total blocks by Blankenship (49), Cvitkovic (30) and Caroline Jurevicius (26), and in digs by Morano (150 digs), Caroline Jurevicius (135 digs) and Daniels (127 digs).
The Lions next complete their regular season with matches Oct. 11 against Lake Catholic and Oct. 13 against Magnificat.
