Girls volleyball: Addison Trail strides past Maine East

Now in her fourth year on varsity, Addison Trail's Sarah Petrbok has seen both her team's play and the program's growth make big strides.

The veteran outside hitter, one of eight returning seniors, has helped with these strides both on and off the court. On Tuesday night she had 6 kills as the Blazers knocked off visiting Maine East 25-13, 25-20 in nonconference action as both schools prepare for the opening of league play next week.

Addison Trail improved to 5-4 while opening the year with a tough schedule, dropping the Blue Demons to 5-2 in the process. The Blazers used some tough serving to build leads of 10-5 and 21-9 while dominating the opener, then finished off the sweep with solid all-around play in the second set.

"Having eight people who played together for years, it helps a lot," said Petrbok, who had a block kill, a tip winner and a big swing kill late in the first set. "I have noticed a tremendous culture change since my freshman year. Not only on varsity level, but there's more connection on all of the levels. We're closer with the freshmen. We do more things together. It's basically like rebuilding a whole program."

Fellow senior Keara Schmitt also had 6 kills, and like Petrbok, the outside hitter had a feeling this could be a special campaign for the Blazers.

"We definitely dominated the passing and serve game," said Schmitt, whose freshman teammate Jessica D'Ambrose had 5 aces against Maine East. "Our relationship is one of the biggest things. All of us seniors returned from last year, so we've all been together at least two years and five of us have been here for three years. We're ready to take off."

Addison Trail coach Dan Styler loves having all the veterans around in 2016.

"For us having eight years is a huge number. There's a comfort level with asking the girls to take more ownership and priority with running efficient practices and getting them to jump start multiple things quickly. So we're fortunate," he said.

With the experience has come increased expectations.

"Expectation-wise, we have very high expectations this year," Petrbok said. "We're not settling for anything. Having all these upperclassmen this year we know we need to not only be good leaders for the underclassmen but we need to set an example for the whole program."

For the Blue Demons, a rough night of passing made it difficult to get the offense going. Even so, middle hitter Morgan Fritze recorded 5 kills and Erika Christiansen added 4.

"It was definitely sloppy," Maine East coach Kevin Bohn said. "Our serve receive really struggled in the first game. The girls just couldn't overcome it and find ways to get points. They were not fighting for points the way Addison Trail was. And offensively (the Blazers) did whatever they wanted against us and we had no answer for them."