Girls volleyball: Fremd has winning appetite against Lake Zurich

To celebrate the first day of homecoming week, food trucks were stationed outside of Fremd High School on Monday.

"Those are so yummy," said Fremd senior outside hitter Jess Rizzo. "But I didn't do it. The line was too long."

Rizzo and the Vikings were hungry for a win in between the volleyball lines on Monday after falling in two sets last week at Schaumburg.

They cured their appetite with a 25-14, 25-12 win over visiting Lake Zurich in the nonconference girls volleyball tuneup for Tuesday's Mid-Suburban West match with Barrington in Palatine.

Rizzo put down a match-high 6 kills, taking her cues from classmate Sarah Straup (42-of-43), who collected 17 setting assists.

"It feels so good," said Rizzo, who was also 8-of-8 passing with 1 dig and an ace. "I was so upset about the loss at Schaumburg. I think we pushed more this match and finished."

Rizzo personally finished the match by serving 4 straight points, including kills from Heidi Sayre and a block by Jess Mazur (3 kills) for match point.

"I thought Jess Rizzo had a real nice match," said Fremd Curt Pinley. "She terminated quite a few balls and I thought Heidi was tough on the outside. Both of our outsides played real well and Sarah did a nice job distributing the ball.

"If you look at our stats, we had a lot of weak side swings, a lot of strong side swings and we swung a lot out of back row."

If you look at the stats, you'd also see the Vikings made only 2 unforced errors in the second set.

"That makes a huge difference," Pinley said. "And we sided out nearly the entire match."

On the other hand, Lake Zurich coach Rachel Wiatrowski said her team is struggling with passing.

"We were siding out too much on first balls," she said. "We were struggling with serve receive, sending too many overpasses and just out of system too much. That will lose you matches."

The Bears (4-6) were led on attack by Claudia Kieda (5 kills) and Katie Guy (3).

Kelly Bush and Kylie Dykgraaf both handed out 5 assists while Andrea Kamins had 7 digs and McKenna Zobel 3 blocks.

"I thought Grace Kinsey was our most controlled player," Wiatrowski added. "And Katie Guy got a lot of touches. It was definitely our mistakes that cost us. We're not giving ourselves an opportunity to get into rallies."

Fremd had a momentum-changing 5-point rally behind the serve of Straup in Set 2 to grab a 15-7 lead.

Straup served an ace during the run and got kills from Peyton Hooker and Sayre (4 kills).

"We just worked really well together this match," Straup said. "In our last match, no one was talking or communicating. We did those things this match and our passing was really good. Our serve receiving was awesome. We were able to run a lot of plays, definitely a lot of free-ball plays."

Maddie Aichinger and Mazur also had aces for Fremd (4-5).

Aichinger (7-of-7 serve receiving) and Samantha Smith (6-of-6 serve receiving) each had a pair of digs while Jules Tangney and Sayre (7-of-7 serve receiving) collected 2 blocks apiece.

"We practiced serve receive and it paid off," Rizzo said. "It's nice to start homecoming week with a win and now we have to get ready for Barrington (at 6 p.m. Tuesday).

"We really limited our errors," Pinley added. "Lake Zurich is always a very tough team. They have good size so you just have to play disciplined, and I thought we did. It was a nice Monday win and now we get ready for Barrington."