Barrington takes Elk Grove invite

Updated: September 24, 2011 6:02PM

Not every team is blessed with a stable of 5-foot-11, 6-foot and 6-foot-1 outside hitters. The Fillies of Barrington are one of those teams.

But Olivia Szuszkiewicz proved that she can play with the big girls Saturday at the Elk Grove tournament. The 5-foot-8 senior outside hitter had seven kills, a block and two aces to lead Barrington past Stevenson 25-21, 25-13 in the championship match.

Barrington (16-2) finished the round-robin 5-0. Stevenson, which reached the championship of the Jacobs tournament only to lose to Cary-Grove, took second at 4-1.

“I think the last game really showed how great we work together,” Szuszkiewicz said. “I love the chemistry on this team. Stevenson has always been real good. We didn’t know what to expect, but we believed that if we did our best we could come out with a win.”

Szuszkiewicz’s kill off the block in Game 1 gave Barrington a 17-16 lead and her slam off a set from Peyton Lang extended the Fillies’ advantage to 24-21. In Game 2, she had back-to-back aces to give Barrington a 17-6 cushion.

“Olivia does every skill really well,” Barrington coach Rob Ridenour said. “She’s a real solid passer, she’s probably our best defender, and offensively she finds a way to score balls. She’s got all the shots.

“She’s athletic enough to get up and bang a ball, too,” the coach added. “There was a match last year when she realized she was high enough where she go up and still challenge the bigger kids. Since then, she’s been a force on the outside.”

Szuszkiewicz wasn’t the whole show for Barrington, however. Lang, a 6-1 junior outside, added seven kills, 5-11 junior Julia Thompson had five kills and an ace, 6-1 middle Lauren Schechtman added four kills and three blocks and Lauren Dunseith added 21 assists and an ace.

But the smallish Szuszkiewicz stole center stage Saturday.

“I know if I have a big block up I have to work around that block,” she said. “We’ve been working on eye sequencing, seeing where people are placed on the court when the ball is being passed and finding where everyone’s going and where I should make that shot.”

“The big thing for us today was that we progressively got better as the day went on,” Ridenour said. “We gutted out a win against Crystal Lake South early in the day. We didn’t play great but we dug down and got a win.

“Against Stevenson, we finally started physically to play pretty well,” the coach added. “I was particularly happy with our defense. Emily Casaletto did a great job stabilizing our serve-receive from the libero position, and Amanda Dee, our defensive specialist, also did a real nice job.”

Stevenson (15-5), which had not lost since the finals of the Jacobs tournament and earlier in the week beat Wheaton Classic Silver division champion Libertyville, got four kills and a block from Khaila Donaldson and five kills and an ace from Liza Pflugardt.

“Liza pretty much carried us this tournament, serving and in the front row,” Stevenson coach Tim Crow said. “It was one of the better tournament performances I’ve seen, and Khaila did a nice job after filling in against Elk Grove.

“It was one of those things in the second game if we weren’t missing serves we were in the net,” he added. “Literally, every three points we missed a serve or were in the net. You’re not going to have a chance to win if you do that.”

Stevenson played without arguably its best player, junior outside Rachel Baader, who is out with a thumb injury. The Patriots hope to have her back soon.

“We’ve gotten better in a lot of areas without Rachel here,” Crow said. “We’ll continue to work until she comes back and go from there. I’m a little disappointed with the girls’ performance in the championship game. We kind of fell apart.”

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