Girls volleyball: Barrington sweeps Fremd in MSL opener
Beginning its quest for a third Mid-Suburban League crown in four years, Barrington's girls volleyball team got off to a strong start on Tuesday night at Fremd.
With senior Jenna Meitzler (7 kills), senior Hope Regas (6) and junior Whitney Mall (6) leading the way on attack, the Fillies got past the Vikings 25-19, 25-15 in the MSL opener in Palatine.
Six of the Barrington seniors, including setter Gwen Adler (11 assists, 6 points), were freshmen on the Fillies' MSL championship team four year ago.
"It's kind of sad," said Adler, a senior and Seton Hall recruit who has helped the Fillies to back-to-back third-place finishes in the Class 4A state finals. "l've been here so long I don't want to leave. This team is very senior heavy (13 in all) so we're all just cherishing our last year season we have together. Obviously we want to do as well as we can and work super hard to try and achieve the things we want."
The Fillies worked hard in Set 1 to shake a pesky Fremd team that trailed 11-8 before the visitors zoomed ahead 23-13 on 5 service points from Meitzler, including an ace.
Ellie Braun's kill for Fremd got the Vikings within 22-18 before a block by Mall wrapped it up moments later at 25-19.
Senior Molly Kozak served the first 5 points of Set 2. Fremd got to within 5-3 but Adler also served 5 straight points to extend the lead to 11-3 and the visitors (12-1) never looked back.
Kozak (13 points) produced another string of 5 points to make it 24-13. The Vikes got a tip kill from Kate Pfister and an ace from Ella Castelloni before Georgetown pledge Berkeley Ploder (2 blocks) put down the match-ending kill.
"I'm proud of the girls," said Fillies coach Michele Jakubowski. "They're playing well. There's definitely some room to grow and we have to fix some undisciplined things we do right now but they work incredibly hard and are an amazing group of girls.
"I thought Jenna (Meitzler) did a real nice job all around. She hits for us, passes for us and sets for us. Gwen runs a great offense and I thought Whitney Mall did a really nice job getting some great kills and getting her feet to the ball. Berkeley always does a nice job and Hope did a nice job.
"We're lucky in that we can mix the ball around a lot. A lot of teams have one big hitter. We have three or four with a middle. And between Molly (O'Riordan, a Bradley basketball recruit) back and starting to learn the game again and Anna (Gustafson) we're going to have more and more ability to run a few more people."
Meitzler, an Iowa recruit running a 6-2 offense with Adler, also had 10 assists and 1 block.
"Jenna is a workhorse, she does such an amazing job," Jakubowski said. "Running a 6-2, we get another offensive mind in there. Hope (Grand Canyon University for beach volleyball) comes in or Megan Bergquist. We have a lot of options."
Pfister, Megan Spiekermann and Sasha Sallade each had 2 kills for Fremd (6-8) while sophomore setter Akshara Jay led in assists.
"Our sophomore setter is really making strides," said Fremd coach Peter Gavin. "It's really her first time setting a 5-1 offense. Sue is usually a hitter and she's doing a great job. Our libero is out with a fractured ankle and our sophomore libero (Castelloni) stepped in and she is doing a great job. Obviously, we'd like to see a difference in the scores of the games but there are a lot of positives to take away.
"We knew what we were going to see from Barrington. We struggled a little in serve receive. We really couldn't get our middles involved at all but the good news for us is that they weren't really able to set their middles, either. So there were a lot of positives to take away."