Barrington snaps Hersey’s MSL title streak

It was during summer camp when the Barrington girls volleyball team got an idea.

“We put a goal in our minds,” said Fillies senior setter Lauren Dunseith. “We said, ‘Let’s win the Mid-Suburban League championship.’ ”

After Dunseith tossed over a picture-perfect dump, that’s exactly what the Fillies did in their own gymnasium on Thursday night.

Dunseith’s nifty kill gave Barrington a 25-21, 25-22 triumph over Hersey in the 39th annual MSL championship match and ended the Huskies’ string of three straight conference titles.

It gave the Fillies their first conference crown since 2006 and their seventh in the 2000s.

Dunseith, of course, was busy most of the match setting up kills, and finished with 24 assists.

Her leading targets were junior Peyton Lang (9 kills), senior Olivia Szuszkiewicz (8), junior Lauren Shechtman (6) and junior Julia Thompson (4).

“I thought Peyton had an incredible night,” said Fillies first-year coach Rob Ridenour. “For a junior to step up in a big conference match, that’s great to see.”

The Fillies (26-7) stepped on the pedal early, racing to leads of 8-1 and 10-2.

Senior Natasha Singh fired an ace for a 5-1 lead. Lang had a block during early surge while Shechtman had a block and 2 kills.

“Getting ahead early like that is really important to us,” said Dunseith, who also had 7 digs and an ace. “We always want to utilize a strong start as a tool to win a set.”

“We knew we had to keep going for points, keeping the pressure on them,” Szuzskiewicz said. “We didn’t want to let them back into it.”

Hersey (25-5), though, didn’t let the Fillies off the hook easy. The Huskies kept grinding and got to within 24-21.

Senior Kristen Pedersen got a kill on a slide from setter Abby Fesl (17 assists) to make it 24-20. An ensuing kill by Fesl got the Huskies to within 3 before Lang put down the set-winning kill.

“Set 1 was a combination of us playing well and I think Hersey not playing the way its capable,” Ridenour said. “But they made a strong charge. Honestly, I was relieved when it was over because they were closing fast on us.”

The Fillies’ most important part of the match might have been the start of Set 2 where they did not allow Hersey to carry over the late momentum from Set 1.

Instead Barrington was able to break a 4-4 tie with 4 unanswered points, thanks to 3 straight kills by Szuszkiewicz.

“We just came out to play our game,” said the 5-foot-8 Szuszkiewicz, who played all parts of the game superbly with 5 digs and 3 aces. “We were hoping for the best. Winning the conference was always in the back of our minds. I’m really proud of our whole team.”

“Olivia does everything for us,” said Ridenour, who also received 7 digs from Emily Casaletto.

The Fillies’ biggest lead in Set 2 was 6 points and Hersey got to within 22-19 and 23-20.

Barrington hit match point when Lang put down her ninth kill.

After a 4-hits call by Barrington made it 24-22, Dunseith put the finishing touches on the Fillies’ 10th MSL crown in school history .

“These girls worked real hard,” Ridenour said. “The seniors (Amanda Dee, Kaitlin Koenig, Madison Keller, Dunseith, Szuszkiewicz and Singh) were great tonight. They came in with really good focus and I’m really happy for them.”

Hersey was led on attack by senior Maggie Hogen’s 8 kills. Kelsey Haas added 5 while Erica Hill added 3.

But the Huskies made 15 hitting errors, which coach Nancy Lill felt was their demise.

“You can’t win any match doing that,” she said. “That’s 15 points you might lose on offense. We had too many unforced errors. You can’t do that and expect to win.”

The Huskies will try to get back to winning at the Lake Park Invite this weekend.

“I knew that the team that handled the pressure would win this match,” Lill said. “And Barrington handled the pressure.

“I was is a state of shock the way we came out (down 10-2). We had been playing great volleyball but we just didn’t execute and there were a lot of errors. We are lucky this wasn’t the state tournament. Now we must get ready for our next invite and then the state tournament. We have a lot to look forward to.”

And Barrington will move forward with a title it has not held since 2006 — Mid-Suburban League champion.