Girls volleyball: Niles West advances despite Fremd's fine effort

One thing is for sure when Niles West's girls volleyball team goes after its first supersectional title in school history on Saturday night.

The Wolves will have no shortage of confidence.

After postseason wins over a conference co-champion and No. 4 seed (New Trier in the regional final) and the top seed (Loyola in the semifinals) of the Glenbrook South sectional, No. 5-seeded Niles West defeated yet another conference champion, Fremd, to win the title on Thursday night in Glenview.

Not to mention the Wolves showed they can rally from a pretty improbable deficit.

They trailed the Mid-Suburban League champs 22-16 before chipping away at the lead and finally escaping with a 20-25, 25-20, 25-23 triumph in the Titan Dome.

Trailing 23-20, back-to-back kills by sophomore Natalie Pehar got the Wolves to within 23-22 before they took advantage of 3 hitting errors to lock up their first sectional crown in school history along with a school-record 27th win against 8 losses.

Niles West will Riverside-Brookfield in the Schaumburg supersectional at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

"We had a couple of attacks at the end that were just barely out," said Vikings coach Curt Pinley, who guided the Vikings to a stellar 30-9 season. "But we wanted to stay aggressive the whole match and we did a great job at that."

The Vikings were nursing a 15-13 lead in the third set when senior Bailey Hooker reeled off back-to-back aces for a 17-13 cushion that forced Wolves coach Stacy Metoye to call her final timeout.

The Vikes drew off to a 20-15 lead on back-to-back kills by junior Jess Rizzo that put the pressure on the girls from Skokie.

The first kill by Rizzo was set up by terrific dig by Sara Gans (7 for the match) while the second went out of bounds off the hands of a Wolves' blocker.

A beautiful second attack by setter Natalie Freund (29 assists) fell to the floor to give Fremd its 22-16 cushion.

Metoye then had a message for her team.

"I just told them to smile," she said. "And stay confident, like they had all season."

The Wolves showed their composure and senior libero Bianca Tomuta (20 digs) showed her serving accuracy. She earned the final 4 service points under extreme pressure.

"She misses one of those serves and we do not win," said Metoye, whose 2012 team had the previous school record of 26 wins. "At the beginning of the season she might miss some of those serves in the 20s. But now she is able to stay so focused and she was unbelievable."

"I just thought to myself this could be my last match," Tomuta said. "I wanted to make every dig and every serve."

Senior Kaila Johanson (15 kills) and Pehar (13) made the majority of kills for Niles West.

"Niles West did a great job at the end," Pinley said. "They went to their big hitters and they produced. So you've got to tip your cap to them.

"We just fought so hard all season. I think we represented our school and the conference well. I'm at a loss of words. We had a fantastic finish."

Hooker finished with a team-high 10 kills while Gans and Rizzo had 8 apiece.

Hooker also served 5 aces while junior Jess Mazur had back-to-back aces which gave Fremd a 10-6 lead in the third set.

As usual, senior Karolina Sas helped anchor the back row, collecting 8 digs while going 24-of-24 on serve receive. Gans added 7 digs while Hooker had 6 and Rebecca Uhrich was 10-of-10 serve receiving.

"I would have never thought in a million years we'd get this far," Sas said. "We worked so hard for this and our coaches (Pinley, Nick Vassos, Adam Casberien, Tracy Harding and Elyse McGinn) gave us such great support. I want to thank them. They've pushed us so hard and we didn't want to finish the season. Unfortunately, it did end but we have had a lot of fun this season."

The Vikings won their fourth MSL crown under Pinley and gave him his 400th career girls win last month at the Grayslake North Invite.

"We were the No. 10 seed but it didn't matter what it said on paper," Sas added. "We just had to play together and with heart. That's what got us to this point. We played with heart, not as individuals."

Pinley will not forget this group of individuals.

"They just played all season with heart," he said. "That's what it came down to. They played right down to the last heartbeat.

"They'll remember all the friendships and the level of play they produced all season."