Girls volleyball: Buffalo Grove holds off Rolling Meadows
Buffalo Grove seniors Abby Kim and Maggie Streckert threw a block party on Tuesday night.
And now the Bison girls volleyball team hope to continue celebrating when it plays for a regional championship on Thursday night against neighboring Hersey High School from Arlington Heights.
Middle blocker Kim and setter Streckert each produced season-highs with 5 blocks as the Bison overcame a 6-1 deficit in Set 1 to get past fellow Mid-Suburban East rival Rolling Meadows for the fourth time this fall.
No. 5-seeded BG's 26-24, 25-17 triumph puts the Bison (21-11) in Thursday's Class 4A Hoffman Estates regional final (6 p.m.) against the No. 4-seed Huskies (29-7).
"We need to stay focused and play our game," Streckert (19 assists) said about the third meeting with Hersey (split the first two).
Kim's back-to-back blocks gave BG a 19-17 lead in Set 1 and she added a third to make it 20-18. Sophomore Shannon Coglianese (match-high 10 kills) had the set's final 2 kills for the 26-24 decision.
"We knew Rolling Meadows would come out strong so we had to respond even stronger," Kim said. "It's hard to beat a team four times but we knew we could do it.
"We knew we had to come back as a team. We had to shake off that early deficit, learn from it, and play our best."
Claire Ferris added 10 kills for BG while Lauren Horvath had 5 and Kim a pair.
Nina Masciopinto, who had an assist on Horvath's match winning point, finished with 9 digs, second only to Ferris (14).
"We were finally getting the block up on their outsides," said BG coach Matt Priban of the Bison come back in Set 1.
"It was nice to nice to see that adjustment on our part. That's the thing we focused on last week. After the Barington match (lost in three sets for MSL title) we talked about getting our block up a little quicker and reading the offense a little better. We did a nice job at that."
Ashlyn Ryan (7 kills), Elise Kowalski (7 kills), Letecia Avellaneda (5 kills) and Eleanor Errico (4 kills) led the Mustangs' attack set by Natalie Klancnik (21 assists).
Errico also had 3 blocks while Patyrcja Winnicki, Avellaneda and Klancnik each had one. Sophia Salemi led the back row with 12 digs.
"They're a good team," Priban said. "They do a nice job finding spots on offense. We just had trouble finding a rhythm. When we finally caught a little bit of fire midway through the first set, we picked it up on through and were able to finish in each set."
The Mustangs finished 17-20 under first-year coach Katie Stensland, a former Meadows and Carthage College volleyball standout.
"I'm so proud of them," she said. "We had such great senior leadership and even our even our younger upperclassmen played for those seniors all year.
"I had an amazing group of seniors. We had our ups and downs throughout the season but overall they knew what they wanted, and went out and fought for it. Unfortunately the outcome didn't necessarily go the way we planed but they had a successful season. We competed against everyone we wanted to. We didn't roll over and just let teams beat us any point. The girls worked really hard."