Vernon Hills, Lakes to meet for regional title

Two North Suburban Prairie Division girls volleyball teams won their respective Class 3A regional semifinal at Vernon Hills on Thursday night and will face each other in the final.

Vernon Hills defeated Amundson 25-10, 25-8 in the first match, while Lakes beat Lakeview 25-17, 25-22 in the second semifinal match.

Vernon Hills (19-17) and Lakes (14-21) will play at 1 p.m. Saturday for the regional title.

Lakes trailed 14-13 in Game 2 when senior Ashley Sodt served back-to-back aces to start a 5-1 run. The Eagles never looked back.

“We worked pretty hard in practice so I am very happy that we won,” said Sodt, who finished with 5 kills and 5 aces. “This will be the first time that our girls team will have a chance to win a regional final so we are very excited.”

Lakes sophomore Sarah Horner contributed 5 kills and 4 aces, junior Rachel Sieracke had 4 kills, and senior Jessie

Richter slammed 3 kills.

Sieracke led the defense with 8 digs, and Mary Doupis had five.

Horner served 3 aces in a row in the first game.

“I worked hard on my serves at practice today and it paid off tonight,” Horner said. “We are really looking forward to playing against Vernon Hills.”

“This is exactly where we want to be,” Lakes coach Molly May said. “We're ready to make history for the school on Saturday.”

Vernon Hills, which won the NSC Prairie and lost to Libertyville in the conference championship match, cruised to 8-0 leads in both of its games against Amundsen.

Jenn Claussen served 16 of 16 with 5 aces and also pounded 4 kills. The Cougars got 3 kills apiece from call-up Hannah Francesca-Swanson and Shannon Nugent.

“I thought we did pretty well,” Claussen said. “We had a hard week in practice and we put it all together tonight.”

Julie Pecht also delivered 5 aces on 13-of-13 serving for Vernon Hills. Sarah Lehman lofted 9 assists.

Vernon Hills is also seeking its first regional title.

“We wanted to work on doing the little things right,” Cougar coach Abbie Gutzmer said. “We wanted to pick up our intensity and communication a little bit more, and I thought we did some of that.”