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Schools

Who Let These Dogs Out? Lake Forest Continues State Volleyball Tourney Roll

Sectional finals next on Thursday night.

girls' volleyball team has gone to the dogs.

OK, not exactly.

But dogs was the source of motivation for the Scouts in preparation for Tuesday night's Class 4A Sectional semifinal against North Suburban Conference (NSC) rival Lake Zurich at Buffalo Grove High School.

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“We had a dog house theme," said Lake Forest's Tori Lanzillotti. "We were playing “Who Let the Dogs Out” on the bus. And we all were different dog characters, like Heidi (Sierks) being Clifford the Big Red Dog. And we also call our school Dog Town."

“It was just our way of getting really amped to play Lake Zurich. They’re always such a tough team," she added.

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It worked.

as Lanzillotti posted 10 kills, 8 digs and 2 aces. The win puts Lake Forest (32-4) in Thursday night's Sectional final against yet another NSC foe, Stevenson, which rallied to beat Hersey, 20-25, 25-23 and 25-16, in Tuesday night's second Sectional semifinal.

So does that mean another animal for motivation? At this juncture of the state tournament, whatever works.

“You can see how bad they (Lake Zurich) wanted to win,” said Lake Forest coach Ray Werner. “We didn’t want to take our foot off the gas. Lake Zurich has a way of coming back, which you saw in the second game. If you let them, they’ll come right back at you.”

Lake Forest came out playing aggressively right from the start, going on an 8-0 run to lead 9-2 after setter Heidi Sierks made an especially agile assist to set up Jennifer Kreb for a kill. The Bears managed to close the score to 20-12 and 23-15 before the Scouts closed it out.

“We didn’t do anything well tonight,” said Lake Zurich coach Matt Aiello. “We had a number of returned balls that trickled into the net. We also had a number of calls that went against us. But you’ve got to expect that. We didn’t play well and they did. That’s really all there is to it.”

Game 2 was much different. The Scouts would pull ahead only to have the Bears narrow the gap. Lake Forest reeled off three straight points, including consecutive kills by Lanzillotti, to take a 14-10 lead. They eventually widened the lead to 18-13, but the Bears strung together four straight points, including Amanda Orchard’s kill that eluded Krebs, moving Lake Zurich to within a point.

A couple of misplayed balls by the Scouts saw them cough up the lead, and the Bears forged ahead, 20-19, for their only advantage all evening. The Scouts then tied it, and subsequently took the lead when Orchard’s shot went out of bounds.

Lake Zurich knotted the score several more times, but they were never able to retake the lead.

“The second game was a real dog fight,” said Sierks, staying with the canine theme.

Lake Forest's Mary Striedl also had 9 kills, 5 digs and a pair of aces, while Sierks finished with 23 assists, five kills and 4 digs.

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