All in the family: Coach and two star daughters have Aquin on brink of state title

FREEPORT — Ainsley Stovall was skeptical about Freeport Aquin’s new volleyball coach last year.

“It was weird at first," the 5-foot-11 junior outside hitter said. "I didn’t know if she knew what she was doing."

That seems a mean thing to say about her own mother. But Robyn Stovall was unsure herself.

“Last year was stressful,” said Aquin’s coach, a detective in Freeport's police department by day, who has now coached Aquin to back-to-back state finals. The Bulldogs (39-1) face Sterling Newman (29-7-1) in a Friday morning Class 1A state semifinal at Redbird Arena in Normal.

“I felt under-qualified a lot of times to be a coach at the level I was," Coach Stovall said." All the girls have such talent. I’ve gained confidence in my coaching as well.”

More:How Aquin returned to state and why the Bulldogs are favored to win a volleyball title

Family affair at state

Aquin, third in state last year, had won only one regional volleyball title in more than 30 years before last season. This time, though, the Bulldogs seem clear state-title favorites. Their only loss is to Genoa-Kingston, which is in the Class 2A semifinals, and they also beat G-K once. They have also beaten two of the other four teams in the 1A semifinals. Aquin beat Newman 21-9, 21-17 in Eastland’s tournament a month ago and Springfield Lutheran (37-3) in straight sets in last year’s third-place match. Aquin returns all but two players from that team.

Returnees include Southeast Missouri State recruit Lucy Arndt, Aquin’s all-time kills leader, and two of the coach’s daughters. Arndt leads the team with 443 kills. Second and third are Ainsley (288) and Bentleah Stovall (208).

“To share these memories with my girls is everything to me,” Coach Stovall said. “It’s crazy how things work out. I never would have thought I was going to coach my two daughters.”

When you have kids, it can be hard to plan.

“Having just the two girls 20 months apart and just a grade apart in school, I thought having them close together they would be best friends,” Robyn Stovall said. “But that’s not always true on every single day.”

But even when it isn’t, it isn’t a problem.

“Not many people get to go to state with an arrangement like this,” Bentleah, a 5-10 senior middle hitter, said. “It’s pretty cool.

“We try to keep our own issues off the court. We do a good job of that. Being that close helps. We know what each other needs.

“It is really special to be able to play with her,” Bentleah added. “She obviously doesn’t always listen to me, but there are various aspects of the game where she is better than me. She is a very talented player, especially defensively, and I love being on a team with her.”

More:How 2 of Rockford's top volleyball players became great rivals and even greater friends

Family of athletes

Bentleah and Ainsley come by their athletic success naturally. Robyn was all-conference in volleyball, basketball and softball at Eastland, which went 27-3 her senior year in volleyball in 1991-92. Their dad, Steve Stovall, was a star basketball player for Aquin and also the starting tight end on Aquin’s 1986 state championship football team. He was voted Stephenson County’s next sheriff in Tuesday’s election.

Like their parents, Bentleah and Ainsley grew up playing various sports. Bentleah started out in tumbling, but then quit after a back injury. Volleyball moved up one spot on her pecking order after that, but was still a distant second.

“I wanted to be a basketball player when I grew up because I looked up to Sophie Brunner,” Bentleah said of the area’s all-time leading scorer in basketball, who led Aquin to a pair of state titles and was a three-time All-Pac-12 player at Arizona State. “But you have to be your own person and I really fell in love with the sport playing club volleyball, so I decided to quit basketball in seventh grade and focus on volleyball.”

The Arndt family played a key role in that. Lucy’s mom talked Bentleah into joining a suburban club team with Lucy in seventh grade. Ainsley, two years younger, went to a volleyball camp at Club Fusion with Lucy and Bentleah and was invited to join.

“They offered me a spot on Lucy and Bentleah’s team,” Ainsley said. “I decided to take it. I didn’t even like volleyball that much at the time, but I just decided to do it.

“They were both 12 and I was 10. I didn’t play that much because I was younger, but I had a lot of fun on the sidelines cheering them on. So I am super excited I can play with them in high school.”

Joining the club

A couple of years later, other Bulldogs also began to play club volleyball, now mostly at VC United in Rockford. Before that, only Arndt’s older sister, Cassie, who was a four-time academic all-conference pick in the NCAA Division II Great Lakes Valley Conference, had played club volleyball for Aquin.

“At some point, eight of our 12 players have played club volleyball,” Coach Stovall said.

“That makes the whole high school volleyball season easier,” said Arndt, who has signed to play for NCAA Division I Southeast Missouri State. “There is not a weakness on our team.”

Arndt said she fell in love with volleyball trying to pass the ball back and forth as much as she could with the Stovall sisters in the backyard.

“We always wanted to go out in the yard and play pepper together,” Arndt said. “When you love it when you are young, you are going to love it when you are older. I loved playing with them. I am really going to miss it.”

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The Stovalls will miss it, too. But they will always have this as a family memory together, not just a team memory.

“It’s even better that I get to go to state with my mom and my sister,” Ainsley said. “It’s a big thing. It’s not just about me. It’s not just about Bentleah. It’s about all of us and working together as a team, working as a family.”

“I am going to sit back and enjoy this one even more than last year,” Coach Stovall said. “I know what to expect now and so do the girls. With Bentleah being a senior, I want to enjoy this journey as much as I can while leading the team during the state tournament.”

Robyn Stovall, who is a sergeant in the detective force, said Steve knew nothing about volleyball at first.

“He was never a volleyball person until the girls got older, then he had to learn everything about volleyball,” she said.

But he didn’t have to learn about winning. He was the first Stovall to win a state title. And so far the only one. That may change by Saturday.

“I hope we can all be in the state champion club,” Bentleah said.

Matt Trowbridge has covered sports for the Rockford Register Star for over 30 years, after previous stints in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and three years covering the Hawkeyes in Iowa City.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Coach and her two daughters may lead Aquin to volleyball state title