Meyer jumps at chance to help WW South win
Wheaton Warrenville South sophomore Zach Meyer has been working on perfecting his jump serve for the last five years.
The practice came in handy during a 25-22, 25-21 win over Neuqua Valley on Thursday during the opener of Wheaton Warrenville South's Tiger Classic boys volleyball tournament.
Meyer's jump serve helped put some distance between the Tigers and Wildcats in Game 2 as Wheaton Warrenville South extended a 17-16 lead to 22-17, keeping Neuqua Valley on the defensive for most of that stretch.
"I'm a sophomore and I started playing when I was 10, so I've been working on my jump serve for a solid five years now," Meyer said. "I practice that exact jump serve and have gotten it up to 63 miles per hour. That didn't happen tonight, though.
"I consider it a privilege to play on this team as a sophomore and am happy my coach gave me an opportunity to play on a team and program that's been so successful."
In Game 1 the Tigers' biggest lead was 5 after back-to-back service aces by John Hildebrand put his team up 13-8.
After a kill by Jared Wilcox off a Hildebrand set assist put Wheaton Warrenville South up 14-9, the Wildcats maintained pace on back-to-back kills by Austin Neace, along with two Tigers hitting errors and one net violation, cutting the lead to 16-14.
But Wheaton Warrenville South led the rest of the way thanks in part to nine straight points off kills, with eight of the nine being set by Ben Carpio.
In Game 2, after the Tigers tied the score at 8-8, neither team took a lead bigger than 2 points until Wheaton Warrenville South led 19-16.
Leading 18-16, Meyer served on his team's next four points, leading to an ace, two kills and a Neuqua Valley hitting error that put the Tigers up 22-16 before Meyer's run ended with a service error.
"Zack (Meyer) was able to get on a little bit of a rhythm as far as his serve was concerned," Wheaton Warrenville South coach Bill Schreier said. "We know he's got a powerful serve. It's just a matter of being consistent with it. At that juncture, we were going side out for side out, point for point, so that consistency really got us some separation."
The Tigers combined for 30 kills as Wilcox led with a match-high 14.
Neace led Neuqua Valley with a team-high 12 kills.
"We basically got served off the court in the second game," Neuqua Valley coach Erich Mendoza said. "So far in the games we've had, our main weakness has been our serve receive. That's something we're definitely going to have to work on."