Orchard, Lake Zurich turn back Libertyville
At 26-26, in set No. 3, of Thursday night’s Class 4A Libertyville regional volleyball title match, Lake Zurich coach Matt Aiello shouted two of his favorite letters twice.
“A.O., A.O!” Aiello yelled.
A.O. is short for Amanda Orchard, who is tall.
Orchard, the Bears’ marvelous 6-foot outside hitter, then looked right at her coach.
“Finish it,” Aiello ordered, as the team on the other side of the net — Libertyville — wanted to do the same thing.
“End this,” Aiello added. “Do your thing.”
Orchard, a Pitt-bound senior, didn’t say a word.
An Orchard kill put LZ up 27-26.
Another Orchard kill ended it, exclamation-pointing the Bears’ 25-21, 22-25, 28-26 victory.
Conclusion: A.O. (14 kills, 16 digs, 2 blocks, 1 ace) was better than A-OK Thursday night.
“It pumped me up, hearing (Aiello) say that near the end,” Orchard said after LZ (26-11) avenged a three-set loss to Libertyville (28-9) in the regular season.
“We wanted this so much, so badly.”
LZ, seeded fifth in the Buffalo Grove sectional, will face top-seeded Lake Forest in a sectional semifinal at 6 p.m. Tuesday. LF topped Fremd 25-19, 25-22 for the St. Viator regional title Thursday night.
Thursday’s regional title at Libertyville featured nine ties in the third set, including five brief stalemates after an ace by LZ junior middle/outside hitter Layne Self (9 kills, 14 digs, 3 blocks, 2 aces) gave the Bears a 22-21 edge.
Fourth-seeded Libertyville had two match points — at 24-23 and at 26-25 — but LZ junior middle/OH Amelia Leng thumped a kill on each to save the Bears twice.
“Amelia,” said Orchard, “has worked so hard, all season, and she plays so hard. You can see it in her eyes.
“I saw fiery eyes tonight.”
Libertyville coach Greg Loika had to look at moist eyes afterward.
“I feel for them,” he said, standing outside the Wildcats’ locker room. “Sure, they’re disappointed. But you know what? They played their best match of the year. Our mantra was, ‘Leave it all on the floor.’ Our girls did that.”
Wildcats senior middle blocker Kerry Risley charred the home floor, thwacking 9 kills to tie junior OH Julia Smagacz for team-high honors in the category. Risley’s dink kill secured the second set, and her consecutive kills in the final set put Libertyville up 20-17.
“Amazing … Kerry was amazing tonight,” Loika said. “And so was (senior middle) Nicole Kruckman (6 kills, team-best 6 blocks). Nicole had more kills tonight than she had in her previous three matches combined. What a great effort.”
Juniors Cindy Zhou (28 assists) and Kristen Webb (23 digs), along with senior Kelly Cypher (15 digs), also stood out for the hosts.
Aiello, meanwhile, could not stand still. The Bears’ highly energetic coach paced resolutely, in front of his club’s bench, after nearly every point.
Afterward, it looked like had just completed a 10K race in August.
“I could talk volleyball, with anybody, all day long,” said a proud Aiello, as a couple of sweat beads raced down the eastern hemisphere of his face.
“But, right now, I don’t know what to say.”
Aiello later recalled what he’d said to his Bears during timeouts.
“We were really calm (in the huddles), in all of them,” he said. “All I had to say, all I had to remind them was, ‘This is what we’ve been working for all season. Let’s win this.’
“We battled.”
Kristen Walding passed … perfectly. LZ’s sophomore setter went 84-for-84, with 40 assists. Teammate Ali Summers, a senior libero, played the match of her fall season, reaching for 13 digs and helping stabilize her team when it needed a steadying influence.
“We played well,” Aiello said. “We didn’t play our best; we played well. I liked the way we fought, the way we never stopped. If one of our girls made an error, her teammates were there, immediately, to say, ‘OK, get the next one.’ ”