Girls volleyball: Hersey handles Buffalo Grove
Hersey just needed a little grease.
The Huskies were squeaky early and then rolled on like a well-oiled machine as they dropped Buffalo Grove in straight sets 25-17, 25-14 Thursday in Mid-Suburban East girls volleyball action in Arlington Heights.
"We were off early," said Hersey coach Nancy Lill, who won her 994th match as a head coach.
"Our passing game was off and we were missing our serves. All the basics we were off. I wasn't really happy with the team. But then they turned it up."
Hersey (14-4, 5-0) found itself trailing 10-9 in the first set. With Maddie Mullen serving for the Huskies, they ran off 6 consecutive points, four of which came from kills from Kati Kaburov.
"We are much more experienced this year," said Kaburov, who finished with 13 kills on the night to up her career total to a school-record 1,180.
"It really helps us in these hard games. Sometimes we are slow to start. Once we get it going, we get it going well."
Hersey, which opened up a two-game lead over Buffalo Grove (8-12, 3-2) in the MSL East, picked up steam from that point on.
With setter Kaiya Eshoo distributing to the ball around the net, the Huskies were able to push the pedal down and cruise to a 25-17 win the first set.
"Everyone put a lot of effort into it tonight," said Eschoo, who would finish with 22 assists to eight different hitters for kills.
"Whoever I set was able to get the ball down easy. I tried mixing it up so the blockers on the other side wouldn't read it."
Hersey picked up where it left off in the second set. The Huskies bolted to a 10-3 advantage. This time they were able to pull ahead with their blocking at the net.
"I thought our blocking was great," said Juliette VanDenHerik, who had 2 blocks for points to begin the second set.
"We really controlled things up front. Plus our setter did a good job of mixing up the offense."
Buffalo Grove was able to close to 12-7 thanks to a kill from Shannon Coglianese (4 kills). But the Bison would get no closer than that as the Huskies would go on a 7-1 run and never look back.
"We struggled to find our rhythm," Buffalo Grove coach Matt Priban said. "We had some nice flashes here and there. But we got stuck in some ruts and struggled to get some stops."
Nora Zielke had 5 kills for Hersey while VanDenHerik, Janine Bryan and Eshoo each had 3 kills.
"We were able to establish our middles and our outsides," Lill said. "We ended up a like a well-oiled machine. We knew we were playing poorly and putting points up on the board for our opponent. We can't do that ever. We had to snap out of it and we did."