GBN Volleyball Goes Pink in Win Over Maine West

Glenbrook North volleyball showed off different colors in its win over Maine West Thursday night in Northbrook.

The Spartans wore pink in support of breast cancer awareness and picked up their seventh Central Suburban League North win in as many tries over the Warriors 25-16, 25-21.

During “GBN Goes Pink" week, students, faculty and parents buy special pink shirts to raise money for breast cancer awareness during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

“It is cool,” senior setter Abby Shamis said. “Since I’ve been a freshman we’ve been doing it. It’s for a good cause.”

Related: 

On the court, GBN (16-6, 7-0) showed off its depth in the straight set win. Many of the starters didn’t play in the second set, and the result was the same.

“There’s not a lot of difference between my first team and second team,” GBN coach Chris Cooper said. “You can see even in that match that both games pretty much went the same way. To be realistic, I don’t think either one was sharp. I don’t think we played horribly, but we weren’t really sharp.”

In game one Maine West jumped out to an 11-6 lead before Cooper called a timeout that spurred on a 9-1 run that turned the game around. Lauren Emmert led North with four kills in game one followed by Patricia Hare with three.

The Spartans kept the momentum rolling in game two with a completely different lineup, jumping out to a 5-0 lead and never trailing. Sarah Mulhall, Melanie Goodrich, Shayna Fox, Sarah Winter and Kathryn Schmidt registered kills in game two for GBN.

GBN has nearly clinched the conference title, but Shamis said the team believed they were capable of this from the start of the year.

“I think we did,” she said. “We’ve had plans to do this. We’ve got some goals that we’re working towards.”

One of those goals is to win regionals. The Spartans received the No. 5 seed in the Glenbrook South Sectional, but will likely have to travel to one of the top two seeds for regional play due to lower seeds also hosting.

“Even though the five seed is pretty good it may not end up helping us that much because of who is hosting regionals,” Cooper said.

The Warriors (3-18, 2-5) drew the No. 11 seed and are hoping that recent improvements can result in a positive end to a season that started harshly. Coach Randy Tiller’s team started 1-15, but picked up wins over Deerfield and Maine East last week to regain confidence.

Tiller shuffled the lineup, moving Katie Fitzgerald from outside hitter to middle hitter, and saw better results. Fitzgerald led West with six kills on Thursday.

“Our block is improved, our serving is strong,” Tiller said. “It’s such a mental game that if we come in with the right attitude we can challenge very good teams and that’s what we have to do all of next week and going into the state series.”

Glenbrook North travels to Lake Zurich for a match on Monday while Maine West plays at Maine East Tuesday.

Want to receive local news and participate in the conversation? Please "Like" us on Facebook!