Girls volleyball: Burda fires 7 aces, helps Maine South topple Rolling Meadows

As successful a season as Maine South's girls volleyball team is having, the Hawks did have one slight problem early on.

"I would say our serving accuracy was a little shaky toward the start of the season," said senior defensive specialist Sophie Burda. "And now after some practice, it's later in the season and I would say it's definitely gotten better."

And Burda has definitely had a say in that improvement.

The senior produced a career-best and team-high for the season of 7 aces to help the Hawks (17-7) to a 25-16, 25-20 nonconference triumph over visiting Rolling Meadows on Wednesday night in Park Ridge.

"We've been working a lot on pressure serving," said Hawks coach Jon Weiland, whose 3-2 Central Suburban League South team has a big conference match with Glenbrook North (21-2, 4-1) on Thursday night, also in Park Ridge.

"Serve and serve receive won this match," Weiland added. "We lost on Monday night (to New Trier in two sets) because of it so Tuesday's practice was a lot of serve and serve receive pressure and a lot of scrappy defense stuff. Defense helped us stay in this match, serving helped us run away with it and finish it. When our serve and serve receive is on, our offense is on."

That attack, set by Teagan Heneghan (10 assists) and Vasara Rauda (5 assists), was led by junior Safia Orucevic (7 kills), senior Kiley Andrews (4 kills) and junior Katie Krueger (3 kills) while the Hawks totaled 15 aces in all.

"That (15 aces) was too many for us to win," said Mustangs coach Jack Nickle.

"It was a really fun match," Burda said. "This was a good confidence boost after our match with New Trier. That was a little rough so this was a fun match to play today."

The Hawks' serving made it rough for Meadows (15-16) to get its offense in sync.

An ace by Chloe Keuter gave the hosts a 4-2 lead in Set 1 and 3 straight aces by Heneghan made it 13-6. Back-to-back aces from Burda increased the lead to 17-7.

An ace from Orucevic got the Hawks to set point before Meadows scored three in a row capped by Harper Giersch's kill that made it 24-16. Alex Galimski's block ended it at 25-16.

"When we lose as bad as we did in serve and serve receive in the first set, it's going to be tough for us to win," Nickle said. "In the second game, I thought our passing got a little better. In some of the other matches we struggled in this season, it usually came back to serve and serve receive."

The Mustangs made things interesting in Set 2 after falling behind 13-7 on a kill by Andrews.

Meadows got to within 14-11 thanks to back-to-back kills by Bella Zielinski and later to within 15-12 on another kill from the hard-hitting Zielinski.

An ace by libero Ashley Perns cut the deficit to 16-14 before South pulled away again 19-14 on another block by Galimski.

Meadows dug in again and closed to within 20-19 and 21-20 on Zielinski's match-high ninth kill before the Hawks registered the final 4 points on Heneghan's quick set to Krueger for a kill followed by Burda's three straight aces to end the match.

"I feel lucky in that one of those barely went over the net," Burda said with a smile. "But it was super fun. We work on a lot of pressure serving in practice. Sometimes before we get our water breaks, I'll go back there and I have to make my serve. And if we miss, we run. But if you make it, you go get water so that's been helping for sure."

Weiland said junior middle blocker Olivia Crawford was helping with her net play.

"Olivia has been in and out of the front row at times," he said. "We moved one of our middles to right side this match so Olivia had 3 big blocks and she was a big step up for us."

Nickle also credited his middle blockers, Dalia Grandberry and Giselle Vasquez.

"I thought they played well offensively when we could get them the ball," he said. "But when they (Maine South) make it so hard with serve and pass, it makes it tough to win. They're a good team and well coached. There were just too many times we were not in a position where we could do enough with the ball."