Spikers Take 3rd At Wheeling Invitational

From the return of his daughter/setter from the injured list to Evanston’s final third place team showing Saturday at the Wheeling Invitational tournament, ETHS head girls volleyball coach Mike McDermott didn’t have any problem believing the glass is half full as the Wildkits enter the stretch run of the 2025 season.

But even with one week left in the regular season, the best way to bring a smile to the coach’s face is to remind him of the plays that happen when his freshman setter, Jovana Mirtchev, puts the ball where freshman outside hitter Nina Williams can deliver a crushing kill.

McDermott knows the future is bright with that pair to build around. And both rookies played big roles Saturday as the Kits won 3 of 5 matches and finished third for the second year in a row.

Evanston reeled off consecutive victories over Elgin Larkin (25-15, 22-25, 15-7), Zion-Benton (23-25, 25-22, 15-11) and Highland Park (25-15, 25-15), then bowed to Grayslake Central (25-23, 25-16) and eventual champion Wheeling (25-10, 25-23).

The Wildkits improved to 11-22 overall and will wrap up the regular season Monday at New Trier and next Wednesday at home against Deerfield. That matchup against Deerfield will be part of the celebration of Senior Night as ETHS will lose 7 seniors from the current varsity roster.

But McDermott’s mixed emotions on that occasion will be tempered by the fact that he has a lot of talent coming back.

Williams collected a team-high 39 kills at Saturday’s one-day tourney and Mirtchev continued her solid work as both a setter and hitter after running the offense in the absence of senior Casey McDermott. McDermott missed the last three matches with an ankle injury before returning to the lineup on Saturday.

Even the inconsistency of play that goes with thrusting 14-year-olds into the varsity fire versus 17 and 18-year-olds with plenty of match experience doesn’t keep the ETHS coach from thinking the best is yet to come for the future of the program.

“That’s the way Nina has played for us all year,” McDermott said. “She’ll make a spectacular play, and then she might get lost out there for awhile. Freshmen do freshmen stuff, things that would work if they were playing on a 14-and-under club team but don’t work against varsity players.

“This year is an opportunity for both of them to get used to the speed of play and the decision making you need at the varsity level. Both Nina and Jovana have high expectations for themselves, and they’ll keep pushing themselves. They both have the physical ability already. But when there’s a pause after you make a mistake, you have to re-set and re-evaluate and move on to the next point. You have to put that behind you and think about what could possibly happen next.

“That’s really tough, to be able to move on to the next points. Even our seniors struggle with that. We struggle with resetting like that instead of locking in on the next point. We have a tendency to sabotage ourselves. But our younger players are playing a lot better now and I saw some really good things today. If we could believe in each other just a little more, we’d win more matches.”

The field at the Wheeling tourney wasn’t exactly loaded --- only two of the six squads in the round-robin affair had winning records coming into the day --- but ETHS played some of its best volleyball of the season before the lunch break.

And the Kits received a boost from another underclassmen, junior middle hitter Laila Ransom, who made her varsity debut and contributed 10 kills and 6 blocks (for points). Ransom is the younger sister of former Evanston stars Zuri Ransom (girls basketball) and Kamau Ransom (football) and her addition to the front line will make the Kits even deeper going forward.

She moved up from the junior varsity squad because McDermott wasn’t sure his daughter, Casey, was healthy enough to play in the front row during the five-match endurance test and might require some backup. Most of Ransom’s success came in the first three matches but she definitely made an impression on McDermott.

“Laila might stay up with us now,” the coach said. “I wanted to have a little more depth up front today and she really showed us something.”

A hot start by senior outside hitter Azalea (“Z”) Steiger-Smith also proved instrumental to those three straight triumphs. Steiger-Smith cranked out 26 kills overall, second behind only Williams.

ETHS needed three sets to slip past a 2-win Elgin Larkin team, blowing the Royals away in the abbreviated third set with an 8-0 run that featured three kills by Steiger-Smith and an ace serve by senior Veronica Hayes.

The Wildkits also had to bounce back against Zion-Benton in the second match of the day, outscoring them 15-11 in the third set. A passing error cut Evanston’s lead to 12-11 but the winners responded with a kill by Williams and a Ransom rejection for a point to finish off the victory. The two teams combined for 11 missed serves in the second set.

Against Highland Park, the Kits never trailed but were never in control until midway through both sets. ETHS led 12-7 in the second set when a kill by Williams accounted for a sideout, and with McDermott at the service line, the Kits broke the game open with three more points on kills by Williams and senior Vivian Mitchell.

The competition got tougher after that.

“We did have better cheering on the bench today, and I thought we showed a lot more energy. That’s usually absent for us,” McDermott suggested. “If we could just focus on being ready for the next play, that would be huge for us. Sometimes we don’t hold serve and keep the ball long enough. We’ve talked all year about trying to do a better job of stacking points (together).”