Girls volleyball: St. Viator tops Elk Grove in two sets

Even Connor Curtin decided to get into the act.

Connor, a kindergarten student and son of St. Viator girls volleyball coach Charlie Curtin, was working on his serve following the Lions' 25-12, 25-15 nonconference win over visiting Elk Grove on Monday night at the Cahill Gymnasium.

Connor must have been impressed by what he just saw.

His father's Lions pitched a season-high 14 aces en route to reaching their high-water mark of two matches over .500 for the third time this season.

The Lions, now 13-11, were led in the ace parade by junior Michaela Mueller, who served a season-high five, just one shy of Kendall's Claffey's team-high six set last week.

Mueller, the Lions junior setter who handed out 15 assists, didn't waste any time, either.

Her first two serve attempts to start the match were picture perfect soft floaters that inched their way over the net and fell to empty spots in the front row.

But she was hardly ready to accept full credit.

"Coach Jimmy (Neil) always gives me the serve and zones," Mueller said. "So it's all him. We practice serving all the time in practice.

"Sometimes we struggle with serving," said senior Katie Kerrigan. "But we've been practicing them a lot and it showed. They are coming along."

The Lions brought along their attack, too, on Monday.

Kerrigan and junior Caroline Hickey led the way with 6 kills apiece followed by Kendall Claffey (4), Kate Nottoli (3), Kaylee Liberty (2) and Colleen Williams (1), who also handed out 4 assists.

Carrie Leazer collected 4 digs and served 6-of-6 with 2 aces for the hosts while Nottoli had 3 aces.

"I thought we played pretty well," Hickey said. "This match was at a little slower pace so we had to make sure we cut down our errors, put the ball in play and did the right thing."

The Lions did the right thing on the serving line, putting up a .333 percentage that bettered their previous high mark of less than .200.

Mueller was 15-of-15 at the line, starting out the match with 3 points to give the Lions the quick lead.

"We kept them off guard right from the get-go, which was fun," Curtin said. "Then we executed serving and hitting wise. The first set was probably the cleanest we played all season as far as errors and executing offensively and defensively."

Rachel Kandefer put down 3 kills for the Grenadiers (4-16) who also received kills from Emma Slattery, Jessica Deering, Nicole Vassiloiu, MacKenzie Vetter, Isabel Michniak and Mary Cronin.

Grens coach Stephanie Kezios gave junior Jalyssa Mercado her first varsity setting experience.

"Jalyssa always does what we ask of her," Kezios said. "She is very coachable. I also think Mary Cronin (senior setter) stepped up."

Kezios said the Grenadiers struggled on serve receive.

"St. Viator is a solid team and they didn't make many errors," she added. "They served aggressively at us and we shut down mentally and lost it."

The Lions host Carmel in an East Suburban Catholic Conference test today.

"It's always fun to play Carmel," Curtin said. "Hopefully we are ready to go."