Girls volleyball: Hersey begins season-opening series against St. Viator with victory

Until Monday, Hersey and St. Viator's girls volleyball teams never met in a regular-season match.

And Kati Kaburov never played in a high school match.

But the Hersey freshman didn't act like a rookie at all.

She led the Huskies on attack with 5 kills in a 25-21, 25-21 victory over the visiting Lions in the Carter Gymnasium.

Senior Zoe Strozewski added 4 kills and 4 blocks for the defending Mid-Suburban League champs while senior Sammi Steger, senior Mary Clare O'Shea (3 blocks) and junior Amy Morgan (6 digs) each added 2 kills.

Senior Maggie Reisel, running a 5-1 offense for most of the match, finished with 13 assists while connecting on 33-of-34 sets.

"Big debut for Kati," said Hersey coach Nancy Lill of her 5-foot-10 freshman outside hitter (9-of-10 serving with an ace and 4 digs) who graduated from Thomas Middle School and wears No. 23. That's the same number as Hersey's 2015 Daily Herald all-area honorary captain Liz Fuerst, who graduated last May. "And Maggie (Reisel) did a really nice job distributing the ball and being a leader on the floor."

The leader on the scoreboard after 24 points was St. Viator.

A kill by sophomore Kaylee Liberty gave the visitors a 14-10 lead but Hersey came to life and scored 7 straight points for a 17-14 lead.

"I thought we were really good at lifting each other up and staying positive when we were down there," Reisel said. "It was really an exciting match and St. Viator played well. We know a lot of their players from club volleyball so it was fun playing against friends and it was a great way to start the season."

Lill and Viator coach Charlie Curtin plan to continue starting seasons with the crosstown match. Next year's contest will be at St. Viator.

"It's great to begin the season against Hersey," said Curtin, who played boys volleyball for Lill when he was a student at Hersey. "Nancy does a great job and it's a great way for us to see where we are at right off the bat."

"It will be great playing them each year, switching home and away," Lill said. "It's a good early season match. We enjoy walking away with a win in this one but we did not play the way we wanted to. But it's day one of a 40-plus schedule of matches. So we have a lot of time to work on things."

Both teams worked hard to the end of each set.

The Lions were within 23-21 in Game 1 before kills from Morgan and Strozewski gave the hosts the win.

Hersey's biggest lead in Set 2 came at 19-12 on a service point from senior Emma Frankiewicz but Viator got back to within 24-21 on back-to-back aces from junior Michaela Mueller (12-of-13 serving) before the Huskies notched the win.

"We had a couple of costly mistakes in the match that come with being a young team at the start of a season," said Curtin, who led the Lions to a Class 3A sectional championship match last fall. "But I saw a lot of positive things that made me happy."

Curtin saw Kendall Claffey (5 kills), Liberty (4 kills), Catherine Hickey (4 kills) and Katie Kerrigan (3) led the attack set by Mueller, who was 52-of-53 with 18 assists.

Kate Nottoli was 7-of-8 serving for Viator with an ace while teammate Carrie Leazer was 5-of-6.

Leading Hersey at the service line were Kaburov (9-of-10, 1 ace), Morgan (13-of-15), Frankiewicz (9-of-9), Liz Solans (7-of-8,), Reisel (7-of-9) and Erin Redding (3-of-4) as Lill play 13 girls in the two sets.

Junior Julia Coniglio had 3 blocking assists for Hersey while Reisel had 2 with 1 solo.

"Maggie has shown she can block," Lill added."And the way she runs the court is exceptional."

"It was really nice getting to play St. Viator for the first time," Reisel said. "It was exciting and our team played really well together."

Maine East d. Buffalo Grove: Maine East won the nonconference season opener 25-21, 15-25, 25-20 in Park Ridge.

Kanella Kalyviaris led the Bison with 5 kills and she served 19-of-20.

Nadia Tarsova added 3 kills for BG while Maggie Streckert (10 assists) and Hannah Schuler (7 assists) handled the setting chores.

Kiarra Akiyoshi collected 10 digs.