A high five for Stevenson at own invite
Lake County represented quite well at Saturday's Stevenson volleyball invitational.
Stevenson, Antioch and Libertyville all compiled winning records on the day and earned medals for the tournament's top-three spots.
The host Patriots won all five of their matches on the day -- dropping just two games -- turning a .500 season record into a 10-5 mark in the process. In the morning, they topped Conant (25-17, 25-22), Libertyville (25-21, 12-25, 25-18) and McHenry (25-18, 25-19).
They then took the first game from Antioch 25-21, but the Sequoits pulled ahead late in the second. Megan Toczek served 5 points in a row to put Antioch ahead 21-19 and force a third game with a 25-22 win.
The Sequoits stayed close early in the third, but Stevenson pulled ahead 16-14 on a tip by Mary Kate Fritzsche and a block by Amanda Fleishman. Hannah Burke then served 6 points in a row to give the Patriots a 20-15 lead on their way to a 25-18 win.
"It was good to get that second wind, get that extra energy and push through the tiredness," Stevenson coach Tim Crow said. "We've did well with our serving, and we always talk about having to serve well because we're not a terribly tall team. So the better we can serve and get teams out of system, the better off we are."
In their final game of the day, the Patriots jumped out to big leads in both games against Wheeling, trailing for just one point in that entire match and winning 25-19, 25-18. Fritzsche hit 20-of-23 against the Wildcats, while Kelly Hall and Fleishman both hit 10-of-10.
"Hannah Burke, our setter, did an amazing job today," Crow said. "Amanda Fleishman did great, and so did Mary Kate, who had a great day both in the back row and attacking for us. All the girls played well across the board and hopefully will continue to play this well."
The Sequoits (14-3) went 3-2 on the day, with their losses to Stevenson and a 23-25, 16-25 defeat against Wheeling. In the morning, Antioch came back from a first-game loss to dispatch Conant 20-25, 25-23, 26-24 and topped Libertyville 25-17, 25-14.
After the Stevenson match, the Sequoits bounced back to close the day with a victory against McHenry.
"We've grown up a lot as a team this year," Antioch coach Glen Heitman said. "We play good defense. We still have rotations we're trying to work on, but our team unity's been real strong. We had a little bit of a meltdown earlier today, but came back in the later matches and played well."
Toczek led the Sequoits with 45 kills and 15 blocks on the day, while Katie Lonergan had 36 and 5, respectively. Melissa Ori delivered 95 assists, and Lindsay Callanan led the team with 24 digs.
As for third-place Libertyville, the Wildcats (7-4) went 1-2 in the morning with a 25-20, 26-24 win against Wheeling but with losses to Stevenson and Antioch.
After lunch, the Wildcats used late runs to put away McHenry 25-15, 25-17. And after dropping the first game, they knocked off Conant 20-25, 25-14, 25-18.
"We were really sluggish this morning, just not in sync in any way," Libertyville coach Chris Trzyna said. "We had some spurts early, but the big thing today was ending on a high note. Against a good Conant team, we were clicking on many parts of our game that were missing in the morning. We were hustling on the court back and forth, and it was nice to end on a high note and finish third. I'm very proud of them."