Buffalo Grove, Hersey advance

The Buffalo Grove girls volleyball players continued to make it a bookend finish for retiring coach Marianne O’Shea.

Over the weekend, they won their own Buffalo Grove Invite for the first time since O’Shea’s first season as coach in 2006.

On Tuesday night, they advanced to the regional championship for the first time since O’Shea’s first season.

But not before O’Shea had to sweat out a come-from-behind three-set win over No. 6-seed Rolling Meadows in the Class 4A Wheeling semifinal.

Senior Paige Smith served for the final 4 points of a close third set to give the No. 11 Bison a 13-25, 25-23, 25-19 victory.

The Bison (17-14) will face No. 2 Hersey (30-5) in the championship match at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Smith put down a kill to give BG a 20-19 lead in the back-and-forth third set. The senior outside hitter then stepped to the line to serve out the match, delivering back-to-back aces to end it.

“I just tried to collect myself before each serve,” she said. “It was nerve-racking. But I just took an extra breath each time, and told myself I’ve done this a million times. Just act like you’re at practice.”

Smith ended with 6 kills behind team leader Alaina Murphy, who registered a match-high 10 and Mary Zawlocki, who put down 7.

Junior middle blocker Bailey North had 5 kills with 4 blocks while senior setter Kathy Hampton (22 assists) ran the offense for the first time in two weeks (recovering from a concussion).

“I was freaking out after Set 1,” Hampton admitted about the 25-13 loss. “It was really scary. It was upsetting but we didn’t give up. We went out and did what we needed to do the next two sets.”

“Our coaches calmed us down, gave us a pep talk and told us we could play better than we did in Set 1,” Smith added. “I was confident we would we come back and play our game. It’s just great that all our dedication and hard work in practice paid off.

“Rolling Meadows is great team. Skill-wise we are pretty even with them. This was definitely a challenging match. We just stuck with it playing our game and having fun.”

Meadows (19-14) led by as many as 4 points in Set 2 (13-9) and it was tied at 23-23.

Victoria Ito, as usual, made some nifty plays in the back row and finished with a match-high 26 digs while Kelly Kowal had 9.

Top attackers for Meadows were Rachel Mickey (5 kills), Morgan Keller (4), Veronica Drabowski (3), Jenny Vliet (2) and Ashley Montanez (2).

Vliet handed out 9 assists while Olivia Falk had 6 along with 5 digs. Drabowski led the back row with 23 digs.

“The girls have gone through a lot not having their coach here (Janet Opels, who was out because of medical reasons),” said assistant Elliott Olson. “The girls battled through it and did a good job. They showed a lot of heart and that’s something you can’t teach.”

Hersey d. Wheeling: Mid-Suburban East champion Hersey led 6-0 in Set 1 and 3-0 in Set 2.

The No. 2 Huskies never looked back either time in a 25-10, 25-15 victory over division rival Wheeling (No. 16 seed) to advance to Thursday’s 6 p.m. championship against No. 11 Buffalo Grove.

It was the Huskies’ third win over the Wildcats this season. Hersey also defeated Buffalo Grove twice in two sets during conference play this season.

“It was good that we got to play a conference team,” said Huskies outside hitter Maggie Hogen, who put down 3 kills on 11-of-11 attacking. “We knew their strengths and weaknesses and we just had to play our game.”

As usual, junior setter Abby Fesl (3 kills) was on her game and handed out 19 assists from 45 attempts. Her other top targets were Kelsey Haas (7 kills), Kristen Pedersen (5 kills), Erica Hill (4 kills) and Lindsay Boivin (3 kills).

“We really fought hard at the beginning,” Fesl said. “And that really carried us through the rest of the match. We brought a lot of energy all the way.”

Taylor Schill sparked the back row with 12 digs while Allie Mueller and Pedersen each had 5.

Senior Kellie Kuzmanic paced the attack for Wheeling (7-29) with 4 kills. Emma Jensen added 3 kills and an ace while Amanda Mullin handed out 9 assists with 2 kills.

“We were a little outmatched,” said Wheeling coach Jason Kopkowski. “They’ve got a great team at Hersey. The nice thing is that we dressed two freshmen and we had as many as three at our tournaments. It’s a very talented group that we are looking forward to, as well as our other classes. But we have some big shoes to fill, especially one being Kellie Kuzmanic.”

Kuzmanic will soon switch into basketball shoes. She is an all-conference player in that sport, too.