Nazareth too much for Oak Park

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Nazareth lost all five of its matches at the Prairie Ridge Invitational Sept. 10 without Brittany Brown.

The Roadrunners are back to doing just fine with her. The 6-foot senior left-hander had a match-high 14 kills in Nazareth’s 25-10, 18-25, 25-13 nonconference victory Thursday night at Oak Park-River Forest.

Brown, a right-side hitter, had six of her kills in the third set when the Roadrunners (10-8) jumped out to an 11-2 lead and scored the last six points in the match. Brittany Zeeb ended the match with her sixth ace.

Brown returned for her third match since suffering a sprained rotator to her right shoulder while diving for a ball at the Lyons Quadrangular Sept. 9. Brown’s presence on the floor takes any pressure off 6-3 senior middle Ana Vrhel, who had nine kills and two blocks against the Huskies (6-12).

“Those two are the first ones [opponents struggle with] match-up wise,” Nazareth coach Wayne Saunders said. “Obviously, we missed [Brown’s] offense, which is huge. I think we’re more confident on the floor when she’s there.”

Brown started off slowly against OPRF, which lost for the eighth time in its last 10 matches. Brown had only three kills in the first set and didn’t pick up her first kill until giving the Roadrunners a 9-3 lead.

Kathryn Sluneko finished with 21 assists and 6-0 sophomore Mariah Rouse added four kills, three blocks and an ace.

“It’s awesome [playing again],” Brown said. “Hopefully, we can keep this going.”

Nazareth led 13-9 in the second set and was ahead 18-17 when the Huskies scored the final eight points to send the match into a third set. The Huskies committed eight hitting errors each in the first and third sets, but only one in the second set.

“That’s the story of our season,” OPRF coach Don August said. “A lot of that is our first pass is not as precisely as we should. Our serve-receive is getting better compared to the beginning of the year. It’s really inconsistent.”

The final run in the second set included two kills by Haley Clark, who had four of her five kills in the second set for OPRF.

Alena Tourtelotte led the Huskies with six kills and Emma Dunne and Audrey Greffen had four kills each.

“We’re improving. But our first pass has to improve for our setting to improve and then our hitting will improve,” August said.

The Roadrunners quickly rebounded to start off the final set after giving up those eight consecutive points.

“We just let up to let them back in,” Saunders said. “They [OPRF] played with more confidence. We didn’t execute like we should.”

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