Barrington gets its game on, drops BG
In order to qualify for Saturday's Class 4A state volleyball regionals, No. 13-seeded Barrington and No. 20 Buffalo Grove were required to compete in a "play-in" match Wednesday night.
The host Fillies won 25-6, 25-14 and now hope to "play on" for a long time in the state tourney.
The Fillies (16-20) resume action at the Lake Zurich regional Saturday against the host Bears (29-6) in the 3 p.m. semifinal.
Fremd (25-10) and Prospect (16-19) meet at 4 p.m. in the second semifinal and the championship follows at 5:30 p.m.
"Coach kept telling us, "Come October, come October, we had to be ready to play," "said Fillies senior all-conference defensive specialist Katie Goldrath. "We struggled early this season, we were young and a lot of us hadn't played together. But we're starting to develop moments of brilliance and hopefully we can sustain it the rest of the way."
The Fillies sustained a fierce serving attack Wednesday with a season-high 14 aces, led by Marley Leitner (4 aces), Paige Czarnecki (3), Madeline Root (2), Kelly Pickering (2) and Goldrath (2).
"We missed a couple (6 service errors)," Goldrath said. "But compared to the amount of aces, it definitely boosted our confidence."
Root was a confident setter all match, going to an array of hitters led by Leitner (10 kills), Emily Harris (7) and Jackie Patmore (5).
Root also helped spark the defense with 10 digs.
"When you can get a double-double (22 assists, 10 digs) from your setter, that's going to win you a lot of matches," said coach Chris Bronke, who guided the Fillies to fourth place in the Class AA state tourney a year ago. "It was a nice night for her. She's been a great addition to our team."
"The hitters did an amazing job finding the holes," Root said. "We work a lot on serving in practice, and it paid off this match."
Bronke likes his team's work ethic for serving.
"We're a team that doesn't get a lot of points on the block, so one way to compensate is to get a lot of aces," the coach said. "The girls have done a great job buying into serving and working on it. And that makes a difference."
Buffalo Grove (8-26-1) was a different team than it had been for most of the season.
The Bison were without all-conference senior outside hitter and leading attacker Lauren Angotti (illness), and junior middle hitter Brittany Abrahms (ankle), the team's second-leading blocker behind Angotti.
The Bison trailed 5-4 in both games when Barrington started to pull away.
Senior Alyssa Falk, who made the hustle play of the night when she went racing toward the back wall to attempt a save, served back-to back aces to keep the Bison close early in Game 2.
"I thought we were a little jumpy, a little overwhelmed with a lot of new people on the court," said Bison coach Marianne Mendoza. "And Barrington plays with such a quick offense which we haven't seen for about two weeks (since a three-game victory over MSL East champ Hersey).
"I thought the girls made some nice adjustments to pick things up a little in the second game."