Georgoulis’ gorgeous serving lifts Rolling Meadows

Marie Georgoulis is the setter for Buffalo Grove’s girls volleyball team.

She also was a set-changer on Thursday night at Rolling Meadows.

With the third game tied at 8-8, the 5-foot-8 sophomore served for 8 straight points to give the Bison a commanding 16-8 lead they never relinquished in a 15-25, 25-20, 25-19 Mid-Suburban East victory.

Georgoulis’ longest varsity serving streak included 4 aces, 2 kills by junior Alaina Murphy, a block by senior Bailey North and two timeouts by Rolling Meadows coach Joe DiSilvio.

“I had to focus on every serve,” said Georgoulis, who finished 14-of-14 serving with 4 aces, 26 assists and 15 digs. “I was trying to hit the ball high and get in.”

As Georgoulis served, Bison 5-8 junior libero Lea Masciopinto stood just a few feet away ready to help start the offense if the ball was returned.

“Marie’s serving was definitely a game changer there,” Masciopinto said. “Serving those aces really helped us.”

Masciopinto really helped in the back row, collecting a match-high 26 digs.

“Lea had some nice digs on the corners,” said Bison first-year coach Matt Priban. “She was digging up anything in the middle. We did a really nice job defensively, and she was definitely the key.”

The big keys for Meadows’ attack were Jenny Vliet (11 kills), Morgan Kellar (7 kill, 3 blocks) and Rachel Mickey (5 kills, 3 blocks). Vliet (11 assists) and Sami Kay (15 assists) set the Mustangs’ offense while Grace Skorin (12 digs) and Mia Harper (9) led the back row.

Meadows (11-8, 2-4) got its biggest lead in Set 1 on a service point by Harper which made it 18-9.

Except for the stretch where Georgoulis gave BG its comfortable lead in Set 3, Meadows played competitively against the visitors.

“That’s what I told the girls, especially in the first set,” DiSilvio said. “I told them they controlled the set and earned their points.

“Give Buffalo Grove credit. They came out and played great defense. They took our attack away.”

BG (10-9, 4-2) took control midway through Set 2 when a kill by Murphy made it 16-12.

Mary Zawlocki’s kill off a block made it 22-17 and moments later the senior served for a point which made it 24-20.

Vliet’s kill held off one set point before Murphy put down the winner that evened the match at 1 set apiece.

Set 3 was tied at 4, 7 and 8 before Georgoulis broke it open.

“Consistency, that’s what we needed from Marie there,” Priban said. “That was a good run for us. We needed it. It gave us a lot of momentum.”

“We just knew we had to pick up our energy and play as a team,” added Georgoulis, who gave her hitters plenty of chances with 70 sets on the mark.

Murphy took advantage with 14 kills while Zawlocki put down 6. North and Alyssa Mills had 3 apiece.

Murphy had a pair of blocks, including the match winner. Zawlocki had a team-high 3 blocks and North added 2.

“I thought we came out kind of flat so we had to make some adjustments,” said Priban, whose team defeated Meadows in two sets earlier in the season. “Our blocking wasn’t where we needed it to be so we took away the entire angle.”