Girls volleyball: Hoffman Estates flips script in three-set thriller over Maine West
As an All-Area honorable setter at Conant, first-year Maine West girls volleyball coach Payton Litney remembers going up against Hoffman Estates coach Pat Moran's teams.
"I remembered he was always super energetic," Litney said.
Litney's Warriors and Moran's Hawks certainly showed plenty of energy in Tuesday night's nonconference match in Des Plaines and when it was over Hoffman Estates had avenged a three-set loss to Maine West just three days earlier at the Hawks 12-team tourney.
Hoffman (6-4) flipped the script with a 25-20, 23-25, 25-23 victory after the Warriors (4-6) won Saturday 11-25, 27-26, 15-13 in a 9 a.m. match.
"It was kind of crazy, just like the same type of match over again," said junior Hoffman middle hitter Bella Whalen, who put down a career -high 11 kills and served the final two points of the match. “We've done some really good stuff this season and I think we're going to continue to do some really great stuff."
Moran likes the great stuff Whalen has been doing since freshman year when she played on the junior varsity..
"She has taken a huge leap confidence-wise from her sophomore to junior year," Moran said. "I even had a former player come back to our tournament last weekend and she said she couldn't believe how confident Bella looks. So that's just a big piece of our team right now. She is just playing with a lot of confidence. Everyone really trusts Bella now, including her setters.“
Senior setter Melody Tsolman (12 assists) and junior Julia Zablotny ran a 6-2 offense.
"My kills were just the result of our great setters," added Whalen, who is also a big factor on defense.
"She does a really nice job at the net defensively," Moran said. "She does a good job reading where the ball is going and I don't need to remind Bella to block. She is locked in all the time in there and that just goes a long way when you have somebody in the middle of the court who doesn’t take any points off.“
With the score even at 20, the Hawks rattled off five straight points with Zablotny serving to win the first set, capped by her ace and a block by junior Samantha Cook, who had 5 kills as did senior Zaya Enkhtaivan. Libero Hanna Buhayova had 11 digs.
"I thought my libero did a nice job overall," Moran added. "She's very scrappy and aggressive. You definitely wouldn't know that she's only a sophomore the way she plays. I thought she had a nice match on a night where some of our passing was a little inconsistent. Hana showed why she is wearing the libero jersey,".
Showing attacking power for the Warriors were sophomore Alyssa Gambino (8 kills), junior Zoe Cooper (6 kills) and sophomore Lena Galus (5 kills) while libero Olivia Bialek had 18 digs and freshman setter Tessa Skinner collected 11 assists.
"It's really nice to see how he (Moran) has Hoffman Estates playing at such a competitive level and hanging with everyone in the Mid-Suburban League," Litney said. "This was a back-and-forth match just like Saturday. We were fighting really hard and we've made lots of improvement since our first few matches."
Moran, a nine-year veteran, was in his first few years at Hoffman when Litney was playing for Conant.
“She is doing a good job which I expected," Moran said. "She was a good player when I saw her early in her career. She knows the game. I expect to be seeing a lot more of her over the years. We'll keep them on our schedule as long as we can. It's a nice competitive match program-wide."