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Lake Forest looks tough against Zion-Benton
Updated: September 14, 2011 9:28PM
Senior Mary Striedl had 11 kills and served up three aces as visiting Lake Forest cruised past Zion-Benton 25-16, 25-15 on Wednesday in a North Suburban Conference Lake Division girls volleyball match.
The Scouts (7-2 overall, 2-0 division) were never challenged by the Zee-Bees (7-9, 0-3).
Tori Lanzillotti added eight kills, Jennifer Kreb a season-high seven kills, and setter Heidi Sierks had 23 assists for the winners. As a team, the Scouts served 10 aces.
Yet, winning coach Ray Werner liked the way his squad played defense against the Zee-Bees.
“That was an excellent defensive match we put together,” he said. “Coach (assistant coach Joe) DeRosa and I have envisioned the potential for our group. Our offense has been there fairly consistently, but it was the defense that really took us above and beyond today.”
This is Werner’s third year as varsity coach, and he was the freshman coach at Lake Forest before that, so he’s been with this group for four seasons.
“Mary Striedl is an exceptional talent,” the coach said of the 6-footer. “Her club team won nationals. She’s really come into her own as a player. Heidi Sierks, our setter, is a real positive person to be around and she’s extremely athletic. We have some really talented players on the outside. They have really good balance and have been together for a long time.
“They’re better people than they are volleyball players, which says a lot.”
Zion-Benton coach Jacob Carlson was happy with the way his girls played against a powerful squad.
“I was happy with our effort. We’re not a big team, so we have to outwork other teams,” Carlson said. “We kept fighting out there.
“Lake Forest is a good team. They’re returning a lot of girls from a team that was very good last year.”
For the Zee-Bees, Jennifer Crane had seven kills and one block.
Lake Forest is in a tournament at Maine East on Friday and Saturday. Zion-Benton plays Antioch on Monday.
Werner knows this group of Scouts can be a factor in the IHSA playoffs.
“They’ve talked about the playoffs, and winning the conference as being signature pieces to our season,” he said. “But, we’ve also broken it down so we don’t get caught up in what’s going to happen at the end of the season and what other teams are doing.
“We talk about that next serve, and if I can stick this hit like I have thousands of times before.”
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