Mokena Teens Win Chicago Beach Volleyball Tournament

When Mokena teenagers Sara Buchbach and Dana Van Dyck arrived at the sand volleyball tournament at Chicago’s North Avenue beach on Saturday, they saw a sea of hardened, steely-eyed competitors focused on the win.

And then the girls beat them all.

“It was so weird. Everyone was so serious and we won. It was fun,” Van Dyck said.

Van Dyck and Buchbach, both 16, entered the North Avenue Beach Ball tourney on a lark, but ended up taking the championship in the 16 and under category.

They play indoor volleyball for the Ultimate Volleyball Club in Frankfort and for , where they will soon start their junior year. They entered Saturday’s tournament because they wanted to give sand volleyball a whirl.

“It’s a lot harder to jump and move in the sand and you have to cover more ground with just two people,” Buchbach said.

The won eight straight games to get into the finals. The girls and their opponents, a pair from Aurora, decided to buck the rules and make the final a best of three instead of one winner-take-all game.

It worked out well for Buchbach and Van Dyck – they lost the first game before coming back to win the last two games and the tournament. It was their only loss of the day.

Van Dyck’s parents were coming back from Kentucky on Saturday and couldn’t make the tournament. This means she got to tell her parents via speakerphone while they were driving back.

But not after she had some fun with them first.

“I wanted to kind of trick them that we lost. So I was like, ‘Yeah, we lost … but that was the first game and then we won the tournament!’” Van Dyck said.

Buchbach’s mother Debbie thinks the chance to win a five-foot-tall trophy had something to do with the girls’ focus.

“It was a hard-fought last match and I think (the trophy) was the incentive. They’ve never seen anything like that,” Debbie Buchbach said.

Van Dyck and Buchbach don’t have the trophy yet. It’s going to be shipped to them.

“I’ve got to see this happen,” Van Dyck’s father Ken said. “Is it going to come in pieces or is it going to be a five-foot trophy in the mail?”