St. Charles East stays poised, surprises St. Charles North

With all the explosive hitting and tenacious digging on display Tuesday night at St. Charles North, what mattered most down the stretch was composure.

A poised and determined St. Charles East (15-17, 4-4) boys volleyball team shook off a first-game defeat and roared back to defeat the host North Stars (14-7, 4-3) 18-25, 25-19, 25-19 in Upstate Eight Conference action.

Trailing 19-18 in Game 2, the Saints rattled off 7 consecutive points to force a decisive third game.

While junior Tom Sheehan's kill proved to be the game-winner in the middle game, junior defensive specialist Keaton O'Connor provided the spark during the late-game surge with a pair of acrobatic back-row digs.

"I'm so proud of him," senior outside hitter Baxter Reed said of O'Connor. "I feel confident when I know I'm standing next to him in the back row."

"Generally in volleyball when someone gets a big kill the entire team goes crazy," said Saints coach Kate McCullagh, "but I think our defense won that game. They had a lot more firepower in the front row where we got most of our motivation with a big dig."

A pair of solo blocks from Reed and Josh Carnell enabled the Saints to grab a 19-14 lead in the third game before the North Stars fought back to within 19-18.

A middle kill from Carnell (5 kills) stopped the St. Charles North run and kicked off a late St. Charles East charge that included kills from Reed (5 kills, 7 digs) and senior Taylor Flahaven (5 kills), and was capped by Sheehan's match-clinching put-down.

"Baxter started as a libero at the beginning of the season so he has handled the transition to outside (hitter) very well," McCullagh said of Reed. "That added firepower on the outside and him being involved in every play has really helped us."

Playing against familiar friends served as a motivating source for Reed.

"It's a friendly rivalry - you feel it," he said. "You look across the net and see your friends and it's a challenge.

"It's bragging rights for another year. It's two (years) in a row and they can't get me back because I'm going to graduate."

Meanwhile, frustration may have set in for the senior-laden North Stars, who played without senior setter Pat Sullivan for the latter half of the third game after receiving a yellow card from officials (unsportsmanlike conduct).

"That was my decision," said North Stars coach Todd Weimer, whose team was led by Jeff Beach (9 kills, 3 solo blocks), Branden Hoerner (8 kills), Kevin Rose (10 digs) and Sullivan (18 assists). "He's a phenomenal player and he's going to play somewhere in college but the respect, language and values - they need to be there.

"We came out and took care of business in the first game and then we started doing some classless things and acting selfish. We were getting upset about our mistakes and it was really bringing ourselves down."

The Saints capitalized on the North Stars' self-destructive tendencies.

"I think they have a good physical team but when things started to not go their way they started to get frustrated," said McCullagh, whose team captured the Waukegan Tournament title last weekend and has now won 6 straight.

"You could see that frustration and I think at that point my boys kind of started to feed off that frustration."