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Girls volleyball: Fremd downs Schaumburg to claim 4th straight MSL West title

Not since 2006 when Barrington capped a run of six straight titles had a Mid-Suburban West club even won four in a row.

But that's what Fremd's girls volleyball team did on Tuesday night with a 25-13, 25-12 win over visiting Schaumburg.

The Vikings (21-2, 9-0), who were co-champions with Barrington last season, will host East champ Hersey (20-3, 9-0) for the MSL title a week from Wednesday at 7 p.m.

"Last year, we played inconsistently through the MSL season," said senior Breslin Reid, a varsity member of the Vikings for the last three years. "This season, we've played consistent volleyball and we really learned to finish."

The Vikings finished Set 1 when senior Jessica Xu passed the ball to sophomore Rian Baker, who set classmate Rylen Reid with the winning point.

Baker began Set 2 by serving a pair of aces and Claudia Wala's kill made it 3-0.

One of sophomore Grace Zinchuk's team-high 6 kills got the Saxons to within 6-4 but Fremd extended the lead to 13-7 with a pair of service points (1 ace) from sophomore Izzy Segoviano (10 digs).

A service point by 6-foot senior setter Alina Peterson got Schaumburg (0-9) to within 14-11 but Fremd went on an 11-1 run to close out the match.

"Fremd is always a really good team," said Peterson, who directed the Saxons' offense with 10 assists. "They throw a lot of stuff at us that we don't see in practice so it's always good to play them and improve ourselves."

Junior Jessie Sariev added 3 kills for the visitors while the back row was led by senior Stephanie Wayda (9 digs), sophomore Abbie Greenberg (5 digs) and senior Maddy Cosman (4 digs). Senior Molly Greenberg collected 3 blocks.

"We have a lot of young players in the starting lineup this season and I think in the years to come we are just going to grow as a program as we have grown this fall," said Peterson, who is looking to play at the next level.

"This is my last season so I wish I could stay and see this potential grow but I am going to come back and help for sure."

"We've been be growing as a team," said Saxons coach Tim Murphy. "This sport is about consistency and we just don't seem to be consistent making plays and stringing good contacts together."

Sophomore Rylen Reid and her sister Breslin had a lot of strong contacts, putting down 9 and 6 kills respectively. Wala added 4 kills to the Fremd attack set by Baker (19 assists) and senior Lydia Vander Ark (5 assists). Junior Deme Yianis served a pair of aces and had 9 digs.

"Fremd has a heck of a team," Murphy added. They're young, too, and they run a nice quick offense that makes it tough for other team's defenses. They've been doing a nice job all season."

After dropping its first two matches in three sets to Naperville Central and Libertyville, the Vikings have reeled off a record 21 straight wins during coach Curt Pinley's 22 years in charge.

"If we keep playing our game, we can keep this streak going," said Breslin Reid. "Consistency and being able to finish has been important for our team and it will be for the conference championship and the state tournament as well."

The Vikings will go into both as the most dominating team in the West for the second half of this past decade.

"I think as a program we have grown and we have expectations of ourselves now," said Pinley who is 12 wins away from 500 with the girls program. "And those expectations are put through early on.

" I think it says lot about our athletes coming through but its also says a lot more about our assistant coaches (Nick Vassos, Mark O'Kelly, Vania Acic, Kelly Pecka and Dan Hutton) who are setting the table. And because they are, we are having success at this level."

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