Metea Valley 'rights the ship' with title

With her arms firmly wrapped around the championship plaque, Metea Valley senior Mikaila Dowd was all smiles after the final match of the Willowbrook Invitational on Saturday.

Dowd helped the Mustangs claim the tourney title for a third straight year and, despite knowing the team has yet to play its best volleyball, the outside hitter was feeling pretty good after the 25-16, 25-15 defeat of Addison Trail.

"I think there were some ups and downs in how we played, but at the end of the day we took care of business," said Dowd, who had 6 kills and an ace in the finals for the Mustangs, who went 5-0 on the weekend without dropping a set. "We won all of our games in two and that's what you want in a tournament like this."

Metea Valley (11-2) knocked off Glenbard South 25-22, 25-15 in the semifinals Saturday morning after winning all three matches in Friday's pool play. In the title match Sydnie Hermann led the way with 9 kills and the imposing pair of tall middles Kailee Bass and Lara Adekunle gave the Blazers fits. The 6-foot-1 Bass had 5 kills and 5 blocks.

"It was good we all, like, took care of business," Dowd said.

"We did what we were supposed to do. We did our jobs. Our defenders defended, our hitters hit, our blockers blocked. I think we're definitely on our way up. We haven't peaked yet. The fact that we have a plaque right now and we haven't peaked yet is very exciting."

Addison Trail (6-6) closed to within 8-6 in the opener after Nicolette Scorza slammed down a short service return. But Metea Valley promptly went on a 9-4 run capped by a kill from Bass off a Sydney Aitchison assist. The Blazers' deficit was never closer than six points from there as the Mustangs took the opener 25-16.

The second game mirrored the first one as Metea Valley claimed a small lead early (7-5) and then opened it up to a comfortable margin before closing out its solid weekend with another sweep.

"We went back to practice … it was nice to have two days of practice Wednesday and Thursday before this and we were able to kind of right the ship," Mustangs coach Dave MacDonald said, noting his team did not play well earlier this week in a three-set loss to Yorkville. "They came in here firing and it was great. It was good wins that we needed after a bad loss."

For Addison Trail and senior Nina Muell, reaching the finals was nice, but the Blazers' showing there could have been better.

"We battled to get here, but when we got here we kind of shut down," said Muell, who had 4 kills and 6 digs in the title match. "We could have played a lot better and competed a lot better than we did. But it's more of a mental thing than a physicality thing. When we get the mental thing down - we have a lot of miscommunication - we'll cut down the errors."

Glenbard South knocked off West Chicago in the third-place match.