Adam: Southeastern to take mighty swing at upsetting No. 1 St. Thomas More and become smallest 1A champ ever

NORMAL, Ill. — It’s difficult to believe any team that has won 39 of 41 games could be considered an underdog.

The Southeastern volleyball team seems to have embraced this unlikely role for two weeks.

The Suns’ last four victories have been against teams ranked in the top 10 of the MaxPreps Class 1A state poll. They will try to knock off the No. 1 team in the poll at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in the Class 1A state championship game against Champaign St. Thomas More (40-1).

The Sabers won the Class 2A state title in 2017 and finished third in Class 2A in 2018. This year’s team has been at the top of the poll all season. 

Southeastern started sectional play ranked No. 5 in the MaxPreps poll and has risen to No. 3. If the Suns go down Saturday, they’ll go down fighting.

“One of my sayings has kind of been, ‘Keep winning until you’re the underdog. Then once you’re the underdog, just start swinging away,’” Southeastern coach Tim Kerr said in the post-match press conference after Southeastern’s 25-16, 25-23 victory on Friday against Springfield Lutheran.

“That’s what we’re gonna be like tomorrow. St. Thomas More, they’re great. Hopefully we can compete a little bit and get ourselves in a situation where we can do some things. And then who knows?”

The two sectional victories at Abingdon and the super-sectional victory at Granville have shown the Suns’ resiliency.

In the sectional semifinal Nov. 1, Southeastern fell behind 8-1 to No. 7-ranked Princeville and lost the first set 27-25. However, the Suns roared back to win the last two sets 25-19, 25-20.

Two days later in the sectional final, the Suns trailed No. 4-ranked Hartsburg-Emden 22-17 in the first set, then fought off three set points to win 26-24, 25-21. 

Southeastern trailed two-time defending Class 1A champion Newark 19-12 in the third set of the Nov. 5 super-sectional match. Kerr admitted, “The girls were lost. I was lost. We weren’t sure what to do.”

So they swung back. The Suns went on a 10-3 run to tie the set at 22-22, and freshman Amanda Stephens delivered back-to-back kills to finish off the 25-20, 21-25, 28-26 victory.

“We looked at our our path (to Redbird Arena) at the very beginning when the IHSA set up the brackets and the pairings, and we recognized right away that this was not going to be a walk in the park,” Kerr said. “Once we passed the regional, we were playing top 10 teams in the state every night.

“One of the statements I made early on was whoever is in this position that we’re in right now would be extremely battle-tested and ready to face the best teams in the state. Fortunately, it was us. We got it done today, and it was awesome.”

The task ahead for the Suns is the most awesome yet.

The Sabres had been pushed to a third game just four times this season before winning 19-25, 25-22, 25-18 in Friday’s first semifinal against Freeport Aquin. St. Thomas More won its first state title in 2017 and placed third in 2018, both in Class 2A. The team’s record during the past five seasons is 169-14. St. Thomas More has five players with at least 98 kills this season, and four of them are 5-foot-11 or taller. The Suns have no players 5-foot-11 or taller.

“From the jump this year, I think (the Sabers) were the favorites,” Kerr said. “They’ve been at the top the whole entire year. They deserve to be there. I just want to go out there and compete. Even if we don’t win, I want us to give a good show. Give yourselves a feeling that we deserve to be on the floor.”

A victory on Saturday would give Southeastern its first state championship in any sport in school history. Southeastern also would become the school with the smallest enrollment (140) to win a Class 1A title since the IHSA adopted a four-class system starting with the 2007 tournament. (Hartsburg-Emden, with an enrollment of 90, won the last Class A tournament in 2006.)

When you’re the underdog, why not go for it?

“(Senior hitter Taylor) Wagner has been the leader of that parade,” Kerr said. “All through her career. I’ve tried to get her to tone it down. There’s other ways to hit. There’s other ways to be successful besides to just hit the ball as hard as you possibly can. But when the time comes and the pressure’s on and she just goes up and blasts the ball, the whole team feeds off that.

“Just go play. Let’s take a swing at it.”

Enrollments of Class 1A Volleyball State Champions