The St. Laurence girls volleyball players are competitive on and off the court.
On the court, the Vikings made it to Class 3A Supersectional play the past two seasons before ending those campaigns with losses to Joliet Catholic in 2022 and St. Ignatius in 2023. They are off to a big start this year, with hopes of taking things at least one step further and making it to the state tournament.
Off the court, the Vikings are in a rough battle against other student-athletes from the Burbank school.
Last year, the team racked up a 3.7 grade point average — best among the school’s fall athletic teams — and the players are taking a serious stance of defending that title.
“Our goal is to maintain the highest GPA in the fall again,” senior libero Natalie Martinez said. “We won it last year, so we want to do it against this year.”
Coach Ellen Yopchick is all for that.
“We always talk that what you do in the classroom is reflective in here [the gym] and vice versa,” Yopchick said. “We’re fortunate enough so have some true student-athletes, which is great.”
St. Laurence’s Vianne Villa gets ready for a serve against Marian Catholic on Sept. 3 in Burbank. Photo by Jeff Vorva
The Vikings entered this week’s action with an 8-3 record, which included a 25-21, 25-19 loss to defending Class 4A state champ Mother McAuley in the title match of the Metea Valley/Oswego East Tournament championship on Aug. 31.
Last year, the same two area teams met for the same title and the Mighty Macs won in convincing fashion, 25-8, 25-9.
“The first set we were neck-and-neck into the 20s and we made some errors,” Yopchick said of this year’s match. “In the second set we were up and down, but I thought our mentality and some of the things we did were really strong.
“But it was a big leap from last year, especially in terms of our expectations of ourselves.”
Heading into this week’s action, Kayla Birmingham leads the Vikings in kills with 106 while Aubrey Martinez has 62. Birmingham and Natalie Martinez lead with team with 11 aces each, Maeve McNamara has a team-high 12 blocks and Natalie Martinez had 75 digs. Setter Vianne Villa had 200 assists.
The Vikings will have a rematch with Mother McAuley on Sept. 17 in Mount Greenwood.