Girls volleyball: Loyola smashes Fremd's dream

Fremd's girls volleyball team came out attacking in Wednesday's Class 4A Loyola sectional championship.

Despite playing the host and top-seeded Ramblers, who feature four future Division I athletes, the No. 3 Vikings had their fans in Halloween frenzy when they broke on top 11-4.

However, this was a Ramblers squad that fended off 4 match points two nights earlier to survive a tough Hersey squad.

"There is nothing more stressful than that," said Loyola senior slugger and Mt. Prospect resident Mary Kate Lopez (5 kills), a water polo goalkeeper in the spring.

"I think that made us really calm this match."

Turned out, it was the calm before the Ramblers' storm.

Loyola (30-8) roared back with a 12-3 run and went on to a 25-19, 25-18 triumph to advance to Friday's Warren supersectional against Prairie Ridge.

Fremd finished a 31-8 campaign and looking to build on it with the return of several underclassmen that featured three starting freshmen - Rian Baker, Rylen Reid and Claudia Wala.

Veteran coach Curt Pinley, a winner of 468 matches in 20 seasons, credited the seniors for making it all happen.

"To be honest, I think the biggest thing this season is sacrifices by the seniors (Jules Tangney, Maddie Aichinger, Marcelina Kosla, Heidi Sayre, Grace Grubb and Peyton Hooker)," Pinley said. "Rarely do you have a group of seniors who decide that in order to be successful we needed the freshmen to start ahead of them. For them to find their roles, accept their roles and move to other positions, I thought it spoke volumes to the kind of people they are.

"If they continue to be those kind of people who will always make sacrifices to better things and other people, they're going to be fantastic adults down the line."

Sayre, who was 18-of-19 serve receiving and had 6 digs, said the Vikings' camaraderie was fantastic.

"I think the best thing is that we were really like a family," We did everything together. We see each other every day. I know that even now we're going to still hang out and see each other and kind of cherish the rest of the year, especially the seniors."

A rare hitting error by Loyola got the Vikings back to 16-15 in Set 1 but the hosts rebounded with a 5-1 run.

"I thought Loyola played a real clean match and any time you do that, good things are going to happen," Pinley said. "Loyola is an outstanding team. They've got size and strength. I thought we played really well. In Set 1 we made a couple of errors here and there but Loyola was also forcing those, too."

The Vikes stayed with the Ramblers early in Set 2, closing to within 8-6 on a kill by junior Breslin Reid.

A kill by Rylen Reid cut the deficit to 12-10 but the hosts went on a 9-2 run and never looked back.

"They are a great team," said Sayre, whose kill halted a 4-point run by Loyola to make it 18-12. "We tried our best. We really wanted this and we fought hard."

"In Set 2, we made a few more errors and when you get to this level that's going to be the difference in the match," Pinley said. "It's hard to come back from a 3 to 4 point run against a team of their nature."

Leading Fremd on offense were Breslin Reid (6 kills) while Hooker and Rylen Reid each had 3. Freshman Rian Baker (7 assists) and junior Lydia Vander Ark (6 assists) set the offense while Aichinger led the back row with 13 digs. Wala had 2 blocks.

"I don't take anything away from what these kids did," Pinley said. "We had three freshmen starting and won 31 matches. At the beginning of the season we didn't know what we had from the summer. But for these kids to reach the sectional finals speaks a lot about them as a team and a lot for us as a program. Hopefully, we'll continue with this and move forward."

Pinley also spoke passionately about his staff of Nick Vassos, Dan Hutton, Adam Casbarian, Mark O'Kelly and Vania AIC.

"Our whole staff was such a close-knit group," he said. " Everyone had a job and role as a coach so all the success we had very little to do what me. It had a lot to do with our assistants who put in so much time and dedication to the season. They did a fantastic job and I'm so proud of them."