Lakes outlasts Antioch

Updated: October 3, 2011 8:30PM

Earlier this season, the girls volleyball teams at Lakes and Antioch played a meaningful North Suburban Conference match, and a meaningful match in the Lakes tournament.

But nothing these teams did on the court last month matched their accomplishments on Monday night when they held their annual Volley For the Cure fund-raising match, this year at Lakes.

“This started under (then Lakes coach) Carla Thompson (a cancer survivor herself) when she took over at Lakes. This was pretty much her brainchild,” said Antioch coach Glen Heitman. “Now, our coaches are taking it and starting to run with it.”

Monday, they ran with it to the end zone, as a huge crowd packed the Lakes gym for an exciting competition in which the pink-clad home team defeated the pink-clad visitors 31-29, 25-16, 25-12 on a night when everybody was a winner.

“We always try to top what we raised the year before,” said Lakes captain Rachel Sieracke. “I don’t know about this year, but last year, we raised over $9,000.

“We sold T-shirts, cookies, rice-crispie treats, we did raffles, we did whatever we could think of to raise as much money as we could.”

Before the match, there was a ceremony in which flowers were given to breast-cancer survivors in attendance.

“It’s awesome,” said Sieracke of the huge crowd. “It’s for such a good cause. This is something we plan our year around. It’s a highlight of the season.

Everybody puts in a lot of work trying to get people to come. I think it’s the best game we play all year.

“Regular contests, we get maybe a dozen parents. But when the whole side of the bleachers are full like at a basketball game, it’s unbelievable.”

Antioch captain Brianna Grant has been a part of these special nights for four years now.

“It’s amazing to raise money while getting to play a sport we love,” said Grant, who will play next year at Texas Tech University. “We tried to get as many people to come tonight as we could.

“It was awesome.”

Antioch is actually in the hunt for the North Suburban Conference Prairie Division title with a 3-0 record — same as Vernon Hills.

The Sequoits play Round Lake this week, while Lakes will host Grant on Tuesday.

Also part of the night was a special 50-50 raffle, in which the proceeds went to Antioch High School Spanish teacher Sarah Menoni, who suffers from acute lymphocytic leukemia.

She received bone-marrow transplants last spring and is remission, but is receiving 24-hour home care.

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