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Girls volleyball: Buffalo Grove cruises past Rolling Meadows

Despite a closely-contested two-set loss at Stevenson on Monday night, Buffalo Grove girls volleyball coach Matt Priban was hardly disappointed with his team's play.

And sure enough, it carried over into Tuesday's Mid-Suburban East match and it resulted in a two-set win this time.

With Megan Mitsunaga, one of eight juniors on the Bison's 10-girl squad, putting down a match-high 8 kills, the Bison rolled to a 25-19, 25-11 victory over visiting Rolling Meadows.

BG (8-11) will take a 3-1 record into Thursday's East match at first-place Hersey (14-3, 4-0). The two teams tied for the East crown last fall.

The Bison hope they can pick up right where they left off Tuesday.

"We're just looking to improve every day," Priban said. "Now we'll get ready for Hersey."

The Bison were ready with their serve on Tuesday, collecting 10 aces, led by Jenna Rickman's 4. Mitsunaga and sophomore Abby Ferriss each had two while Claire Schneider and Sofiya Savytska served one apiece.

Those numbers are quite a contrast from a few weeks ago.

"We kind of struggled at the beginning of the season with consistent serving," Priban said. "So we've been working on that quite a bit, trying to stay aggressive and consistent. And it paid off tonight."

Rickman had three of her aces and Mitsunaga and Ferriss one apiece when the Bison broke a 6-6 tie in Set 2 with an 18-4 run.

A block by Rickman gave BG the lead for good at 7-6 and moments later Mitsunaga's ace made it 8-6.

"We were really serving aggressively," said Mitsunaga, whose eighth kill ended the match. "Our serving helps keeps teams out of their system and then we're able to keep our offense going."

The offense was led by Shannon Coglianese (6 kills, 3 blocks.

Alyssa Ramos, the only senior on the roster, also had a pair of blocks. Nicole Zdunczyk had 2 kills.

Libero Ella McBride (2 kills) keyed the back row with 14 digs while Schneider handed out 18 assists.

Juniors Ashlyn Ryan and Patryjca Winnicki paced the Mustangs (5-13, 0-4) with 4 kills each. Erin Behls handed out 7 assists.

Meadows stayed close all through Set 1 and trailed only 21-19 when Bianca Madey put down a kill.

But BG ended it with 3 service points from Schneider, including an ace for the 25th point.

"That's been the story of our season," said Meadows coach Katie Stensland. "We come out really strong in the first set and the second, but then we usually struggle to continue with consistency and focus.

"We are usually pretty strong at serve receiving but they definitely took us out of system with that tonight."

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