Karissa Kajorinne says it’s not easy finding volleyball players at St. Ignatius High School.
She could have fooled the Hammarskjold Vikings.
Kajorinne, one of four basketball stars masquerading as volleyball players for the Falcons, on Tuesday completed an impressive double, helping St. Ignatius capture its third straight senior girls’ volleyball title.
It was Kajorinne’s second title of the school year, having already powered the Falcons to a senior girls basketball crown.
“In basketball we have a bigger club program I feel. So St. Ignatius had a good core group of basketball players,” Kajorinne said Tuesday, after the Falcons took out the Vikings 3-1 to win the championship, on home court nonetheless.
“As for volleyball, it’s a little bit harder. We’re like the little team that could. We started at the bottom and worked our way up. It feels good to have two (titles) now under our belts.”
It hasn’t been easy, she added.
“We’ve put in lots of hours and we practice as much as we can. I’m glad we’ve gone this far, now we have to win at NWOSSA and hopefully make it to OFSSA, like the team did last year,” Kajorinne said. “I never thought the team would make it this far this year, so it’s a nice feeling with all the injuries that we had.”
Teammate Katelyn Andrea, who plays power for the Falcons, agreed it felt great to take home the title, especially where they came from.
“At the beginning of the season we started off really slow, but I’m really glad we came back to win it,” she said.
The Falcons started 1-5, winning their final eight matches to finish second in the regular season standings behind the Vikings, who wound up 11-3, dropping just eight sets along the way.
Andrea said the Falcons are notoriously slow starters, and even though they took the first set 25-17 before falling 25-23 in the second set, it took them some time to pick up the championship pace.
“Usually we try to pick it up when it really matters,” she said.
They did just that on Tuesday.
The Falcons built a 13-7 lead in the third set and pulled away from there, showing their dominance again in the fourth when they leapt out to a 12-4 advantage. The Vikings pulled to within four, rolling off four straight points to close the gap to 20-16, en route to a 25-18 championship clinching win.
St. Ignatius coach Jonathon Lopez said he was proud of what his girls accomplished, coming together as a team to win the Superior Secondary Schools Athletic Association crown.
“The girls played really well. They’ve been playing really great. They’ve won their last eight games so they just continued their momentum really well tonight,” Lopez said.
Our girls became really dedicated toward the end and they just grew together and played really well together.”
The Falcons will play the NWOSSA final Friday and Saturday at home.
St. Ignatius also captured the junior girls championship, falling in the first set to the Hammarskjold Vikings before winning the final three by identical 25-14 scores.
