Metea Valley works quickly for 1st win
It did not take long for Metea Valley to record its first victory of the season — 34 minutes to be exact.
The Mustangs registered a 25-15, 25-18 victory at Hinsdale Central on Tuesday night in the boys volleyball season opener for both schools.
“I think we played pretty well,” Mustangs coach John Aister said. “I really liked a lot of what we did out there on the floor.”
The Mustangs trailed just once the entire match and it occurred in the first game when the Red Devils managed a 5-4 advantage. Metea eventually distanced itself from the hosts by opening an 18-7 edge thanks to some aggressive serving.
Metea (1-0) finished with 11 aces with middle Shiv Desai leading the way with 4.
“We were aggressive in our serve, but we gave away points in our serve,” Aister said. “We also had 11 service errors. I am OK with that being an even number (compared to the 11 aces).”
Red Devils coach Alan McCloud thought that his team struggled in its serve-receive and that prevented Hinsdale Central from mounting any sort of a consistent attack.
“When we were good in service receive and made a good pass, we turned it into a good attack,” McCloud said. “However, passing off the serve was a huge issue and that is big in volleyball. It is something we will address.”
The Red Devils (0-1) also had no answer for the Mustangs at the net as the trio of Martin Krasuski, Ryan Luckinbill and Desai enjoyed a tremendous amount of success thanks to setter Andrew Miller’s 18 assists.
“I thought once we got the jitters out, we got into a rhythm,” Krasuski said. “We really ran some of the things we wanted to and we had some good attacks and sideouts. We were able to attack when we were serving and that was nice to see.”
Aister was pleased with what he saw from Krasuski.
“Martin is our go-guy as he can put the ball away,” Aister said. “He can hit from anywhere.”
Each team had plenty of new faces out on the floor.
“Our young guys did a nice job asserting themselves,” Aister said. “I’d rather see aggressive mistakes than taking it easy and allowing them to score points on us. We kept (Hinsdale) out of system because of our aggressiveness.”
McCloud had three sophomores see action in setter Kian Peterson, middle Kurt McConnell and outside Jake Regnery add that to a group of juniors who are experiencing varsity-level competition for the first time and it makes for a learning curve.
Despite the youth the Red Devils made the Mustangs earn each game.
“We are pretty young in terms of varsity experience, so we have some growing pains to work through,” McCloud said. “We didn’t quit and didn’t hang heads. The boys kept working and I was encouraged by that.”
Peterson and Danny Flynn led the Red Devils with 2 kills each.