Vikings come up big at BG

To say that Fremd faced a difficult challenge in Wednesday night's Mid-Suburban League boys volleyball championship game would be an understatement.

The Vikings had to travel to a hostile gym and play in front of a large, boisterous crowd against a team, the host Bison, that hadn't lost in the MSL for two seasons.

And things looked even bleaker for the visitors after BG rallied to take Game 1 and grabbed an 18-14 lead in the second game.

"We talked about this before the game," said Fremd middle Trevor Clark. "We said that the biggest thing tonight would be for us not to get down on ourselves."

The Vikings took Clark's words to heart, rallying to win Game 2 and coming through down the stretch in the deciding game to defeat BG 24-26, 25-23, 25-21 in a title match thriller.

Fremd won their first championship since 1998 and reversed last year's result, a 2-game BG win over the Vikes, and ended the East division's stranglehold on the MSL crown.

The MSL West hadn't won since Barrington triumphed in 2005.

"The game tonight was all about reputation and motivation," said Fremd senior outside hitter Cal Nolan. "To win this means a lot to us. They took it from us last year on our court, so we wanted to take it back from them tonight on their court."

Clark and fellow senior Ian Sykes (4 block kills) came up huge in the middle for the winners.

"I thought our play at the net was outstanding," said Fremd coach Curt Pinley. "It was the difference in the game."

Fremd senior libero James Isaacs excelled with 14 digs, 2 aces and 21-for-21 on serve receive.

Co-MSL East player of the year Chris Falknor led BG with 11 kills, 4 blocks and 2 aces.

"I thought Fremd played great defense tonight," said BG coach Matt Aiello, "and I don't think you could categorize anything we did as great.

"We played our sloppiest match of the year, and I don't know why because we came out intense and focused."

After dropping the first game, Fremd (28-6) overcame 5 service errors in Game 2 and tied the match behind 2 late kills by Nolan.

The match turned in Game 3 with the score tied at 21-21. Powerful BG sophomore Chris Shanahan looked to put the Bison ahead with a spike, but Clark was there for the block and the ball hung on top of the net for a millisecond before dropping to BG's side of the court.

"That was intense," said Clark. "I was watching the ball, just hoping it would go over the net."

Three straight hitting errors by BG (26-5) closed out the match.

"What a game to play before heading into the state tournament," said Pinley. "Buffalo Grove is an outstanding team and they made us play at a higher level to beat them, and I think we did that tonight."

Setter Michael Smearman dished out 29 assists for Fremd, while BG libero Joe Duda contributed with 19 digs.

Shanahan and Nick Baronti each had 8 kills for the Bison.

"We didn't play as a team tonight," said Aiello. "We had guys trying to do it all by themselves."

"But I've known most of these guys for four or five years and they'll be back in the gym tomorrow focused and ready to work."