Girls volleyball: Buffalo Grove still in MSL East hunt after downing Meadows

Buffalo Grove's Pennsylvania connection combined for the final point of each set on Monday night as the Bison's girls volleyball team put itself in a position to share the Mid-Suburban East title.

Senior Ella McBride's ace gave BG the first set and classmate Shannon Coglianese put down the match-winning kill to wrap up a 25-19, 25-19 triumph at Rolling Meadows.

In less than five months, McBride (Lock Haven University) and Coglianese (Gannon University) will be playing Division III women's volleyball in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.

"Our schools are only three hours apart so I'm super excited," said McBride, who plans to study marketing.

"Ella is one of my best friends and it's really exciting that we're going to be playing each other in the same conference," said Coglianese who has applied for the Gannon's physician assistant program or may go into biology with a minor in radiology.

"We've been teammates for the past four or five years including teams at Adversity (volleyball club in Vernon Hills)."

McBride finished what had been a back-and-forth first set (tied from 15 to 17) with 4 consecutive points, including 3 aces.

In Set 2, Coglianese wrapped up the match with her sixth kill along with 2 blocks.

"I'm excited for both of them (McBride and Coglianese) playing in college," said Bison coach Matt Priban. "They have a lot of potential and bright futures ahead of them."

Senior setter Claire Schneider handed out 19 assists for BG, which shared the East title with Hersey in 2018.

Priban and the Bison (9-2, 7-2) are excited to host Wednesday's match against the first-place Huskies (8-2, 8-1). Prospect is also 7-2.

"We now look forward to getting ready for what could be a very big match for us," Priban said.

Abby Ferris led BG with 7 kills. She and Megan Mitsunaga each had 2 aces.

"Megan had a nice service run in the second set (6 straight points to make it 9-5)," Priban said. "And Abby came up with a couple of nice aces, too. It wasn't our cleanest match by any means but we were able to put together some runs and finish off with a win."

Senior Ashlyn Ryan led Meadows (4-7, 2-7) with 5 kills while Nicole Dimova had 3. Maddie Zera handed out 15 assists and Eylee Corcoran collected 9 digs.

"At the end of the day, we'll go back to the gym and prepare for upcoming matches against St. Viator and Elk Grove," said Ryan, who will study nursing at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. "This is a tough loss but we learn from our mistakes. Now we know what we need to fix and we are going into practice to fix those mistakes."

"We were competitive," said RM coach Katie Nickle. "BG served us really tough. They had some great serves that went straight down the line and were difficult to pass. We just kind of played flat. We didn't have that final edge to close out."