Girls volleyball: Libertyville serves up a winner against Warren
Late in Wednesday's pivotal North Suburban Conference match, Libertyville sophomore Jaimie Marquardt picked a good time to correct a season-long flaw.
Throughout Libertyville's up-and-down season, the Wildcats have struggled with serving the ball.
That wasn't the case against Warren.
Marquardt served up 3 consecutive aces to close out an impressive 25-22, 25-22 comeback win over the Blue Devils in Libertyville. The Wildcats (16-11, 5-1) trailed by a significant margin in each set, only to bounce back midway in each set to mount a furious comeback, including erasing a 17-10 deficit in the second set.
Marquardt finished with 5 assists and 4 aces to lead the Wildcats to a key conference win over the Blue Devils. Marquardt celebrated her final and decisive ace by running to the middle of the court, leaping high and raising both arms in the air.
"This win felt really good, from coming out strong and playing our game and finishing," Marquardt said. "Serving has been something I've been working on. I've been struggling with serving. We were definitely on our serving game. It felt good to finish with three aces, which was very exciting. This win shows our hard work and dedication paying off throughout the season, especially with these big wins and showing we're competitors and ready to take on good teams."
Junior outside hitter Keira Kasten racked up 7 kills and Grace Bonjour tallied 8 assists, while Grace Comilla recorded 9 digs. Hannah Fleming had 6 kills and 2 aces.
"We're up and down, and today was up," Libertyville coach Greg Loika said. "We kept chipping away and battled back and we got clutch serving at the end, which has been a questionable thing for us throughout the season. We didn't serve soft and served tough, so to finish it with three aces just to keep them off the net and stopped them from doing things they wanted to do."
The Blue Devils (21-13, 5-1) missed an opportunity to complete a rare - at least in recent years - sweep of Stevenson and Libertyville. In the first set, Warren held leads of 10-5, 13-9 and 19-17. The Blue Devils led nearly the entire second set before Libertyville tied it at 21-21.
Lauren Shaw paced the Blue Devils with 9 kills and 7 digs, with Kendal Crawford and Ruth Ziegler each finishing with 6 kills and GabriElle Brewer collecting 20 digs and 4 aces.
"We struggle with passing and our offense is our strong point," Warren coach Yun Chen said. "Libertyville played really well tonight. We struggled on our end at times. The better team won tonight. We have one more match left and will get back to work."