Romy serves up win for Naperville North

Keep the volleyball in play and good things will happen.

Naperville North junior Kevin Romy found himself serving with the Huskies two points away from a victory on Tuesday evening at West Chicago.

Romy put enough spin on both serves that they proved to be too difficult for the Wildcats to handle. Romy’s aces were the difference in the second game, which gave the Huskies a 25-21, 28-26 sweep in DuPage Valley Conference play.

“I just wanted to keep the serve in play,” said Romy, who finished the match with 6 aces and 4 kills. “At the end of the game, you want those serves on the court. I wanted to put just enough on the ball to make it hard to handle.”

Romy’s aces saved the Huskies from almost wasting what was a 16-9 advantage in the second game. A common thread in both games of the match was how the Huskies took early leads only to hang on for the wins in each game.

In Game 1 Naperville North enjoyed a 12-6 only to watch the Wildcats pull even at 15 before the Huskies earned the win thanks to the solid attacks from Romy, Brennan Wiest and Dan Koch.

“If we would have started off both games stronger, it probably would have been a different outcome tonight,” said West Chicago senior middle Trever Slonek, who led the Wildcats with 10 kills and 3 aces. “We put ourselves a hole in each game and then we had to dig our way out of trouble. If we started off as strong as we finished, we showed that we can contend with anyone in the league.”

Naperville North (6-7, 2-1) received another big game from setter Gert Lisha, who dished out 22 assists while collecting 2 aces and 2 blocks.

The Huskies’ overall record might not look all that impressive, but Naperville North took its share of lumps in the Wheaton Warrenville South Invite and the Buffalo Grove Invite. Both tournaments featured top-notch competition.

“We are trying to regroup and get more focused on taking care of what we can control now that we are getting into conference play,” Romy said. “It has taken a bit of time to get the chemistry going. We are starting to head in the right direction. We are coming together.”

West Chicago coach Kris Hasty said she continues to see improvement despite the fact that the Wildcats (8-6, 0-3) are winless in the DVC.

“We’re getting there,” said Hasty, whose team took second at last weekend’s St. Charles East Invite. “We’re lacking a little bit of confidence, but there are signs of improvement in each and every match. The segment we started playing was the best we’ve played this season. We had a chance to win it.”