Girls volleyball: Meadows reaches final four of Scholten

The Rolling Meadows girls went into the Peggy Scholten Volleyball Classic with a 3-0 record on Friday night.

By the end of weekend tourney, the Mustangs were still smiling.

Their 2-3 record was good enough to earn fourth place, the highest finish by a Mid-Suburban League team in this year's 16-team event.

It started with a 25-21, 17-25, 15-13 win over defending Mid-Suburban West champ Palatine on Friday.

"That was a huge way to start the tournament," said Mustangs senior outside hitter Madeline Rebsamen. "We are all really proud of finishing fourth. We just came out trying to do our best, fighting for every point and I think we rose up to the occasion."

Senior Maddie Sellergren led the Mustangs (5-3) on attack, putting down 45 kills in five matches, followed by senior Katie Zanocco (29), senior Kyra Amundson (20) and Rebsamen (12).

"We were really mentally tough on Friday," Rebsamen said. "I think we slipped a little (on Saturday) but we did the best we could."

The Mustangs lost in the semifinals to defending Class 4A state champion St. Francis (25-18, 25-16) and then fell in the third place match to Lake Zurich (25-23, 25-13).

Junior Macie Robinson collected 39 digs in the tourney.

"She was on fire,"said Mustangs coach Joe Di Silvio. "She s amazing, just so solid.

"It was a good tournament for us. We played solid teams and we played well."

Zanocco led the Mustangs with 16 blocks followed by Molly Bonell (6), Amundson (4) and Sellergren (3) while setting the attack were Mallory King (44 assists) and Natalie Klancnik (40 assists).

Palatine came back after the Meadows loss to finish 3-2 and ended up in sixth place following a 25-20, 25-15 win over Fremd.

The Pirates came into the Scholten Classic with a three-set win over Naperville North in their season opener on Wednesday.

"We did a good job playing as a team that match," said senior setter Sydney Christiansen. "We talked about focusing on that again. We've got so many great individuals. Our focus must be on teamwork."

The Pirates host Hersey on Tuesday in a rematch of last year's MSL championship match won by the Huskies.

"We're so excited for that match," said Christiansen, who plans to study marine biology in college. "We're hoping to do better against them and we are going to start working on that when we get into practice on Monday. This tourney was a good learning experience for us to help get where we want to be."

Fremd (3-3) defeated Pius IV (Milwaukee) to finish the tourney at 3-2 and in seventh place.

Top attackers in the tourney for the Vikings (3-3) were Bailey Hooker (25 kills), Sara Ganas (17), Jenny Miller (17), Kailyn Bryk (16), Jessica Mazur (11), Ysabel Lee (9) and Natalie Freund (8).

Lee injured her knee on Friday night.

Vikes coach Curt Pinley, who won his 385th girls volleyball match, expects Lee to miss some time.

Freund set the attack with 75 assists while Carolina Sas (36 digs), Ganas (27) and Hooker (14) paced the back row.

Morgan Sterrett (31 kills), Mallory Gerber (20), Michaela Encarnacion (15) and Julia Spitelli (19) paced Schaumburg, which took 11th place, while Monraia Wilson (9 kills), Patricia Wadas (7) and Natalie Pethes (6) led Hoffman Estates.

Jacobs Invite: Hersey coach Nancy Lill pulled to within 4 wins of 900 for her career as the Huskies (5-2) took fourth place with a 3-2 record.

Wheaton North defeated Hersey 25-15, 25-13 for third place.

Lill is trying to join only six other coaches who have 900 or more girls volleyball matches in Illinois.

Zoe Strozewski (27 kills), Kati Kaburov (24) and Sammi Steger (17) led the Huskies' attack in the five matches while Amy Morgan and Mary Claire O'Shea each had 14.

Strozewski also had 11 blocks while Steger had 9.

Setter Maggie Reisel collected 69 assists and Emma Stozewski had 24 while Emma Frankiewicz paced the back row with 67 digs.

Morgan and Kaburov each served 5 aces.

Barrington (2-6) was 1-4 in the tourney and led in the five matches by Gabby Morris (20 kills), Andi Capel (17 kills) and Chloe Layton (26 assists). Morris and Layton were all-tourney selections.

New Trier Invite: Maine West went 3-2 and finished in seventh place in the 16- team events. Jessica Riedl led the way for the Warriors (6-2) with 34 kills, 10 aces and 16 blocks.

Other top contributors for the Warriors were Sophia Saldana (35 digs, 12 aces), Reilly Olson (27 kills), Amanda Grzebien (38 digs), Ally Block (43 assists) and Christy Kolosvary (39 assists).

Wheeling (6-6) went 2-3 in the tourney to place tenth out of the 16 teams.

Timber Terrell led the Wildcats attack with 58 kills, followed by Kamila Staniszewski (26), Melissa Claver (18), Amanda Prause (16) and Rochelle Laude (12).

Staniszewski served 15 aces while Jessica Janowski (102 assists) and Kaitlyn Schuetz (13 assists) handed the setting chores.

Hala Fakhoury collected 66 digs followed by Terrell (42), who also had 11 blocks.