Conant adds to impressive quick start

The Conant boys volleyball team is off to its best start in recent history.

The Cougars won their season-opening match earlier in the week, an MSL crossover against Wheeling, and Saturday they took second place in their own invitational.

It was Conant's best tournament finish in years as they placed just behind tourney winner Lyons.

"There's a different feeling on the team this year," said Cougars senior libero JT Levitt, a three-year varsity player. "We're bonding and we get along great with each other."

Conant was strong all tournament long Saturday against a tough field.

They defeated Elgin's Westminster Christian and rallied to beat Lake Park, a perennially strong squad.

The Cougars also took Walter Payton Prep, an elite eight qualifier the last two seasons, to the brink before falling in three games.

"We've been coming together," said junior outside hitter Nicholas Pope. "The skies the limit for us this year. It all starts in practice, and the harder you practice, the more it carries over into your game experience.

"We've all improved over the summer and I think we can compete with anyone in our league."

Conant needed a win in its final match of the day against the Lancers to have a chance to claim second place, but they started out slowly with a set one loss.

"We didn't have the focus we needed (in the first set)," said Levitt. "We knew we had to come out with more intensity, and we started communicating better and talking to one another."

The Cougars trailed the second set 12-9 against the Lancers but turned it around and grabbed a 16-13 lead on a slam from Pope.

A late kill by sophomore Pavle Todorov helped Conant tie the match at 1 set apiece.

"The guys had a change in tactics in their attack," said Cougars coach Steven Peter of his team. "You practice playing hard and fast, but often that doesn't translate into points. Sometimes you've got to take a step back, and to their credit, our guys did that and started making more skillful shots."

Conant scored the opening 5 points of the deciding set, watched Lake Park rally, then took a commanding 10-point lead behind the service of Levitt, who ran off 5 consecutive points by keeping the Lancers off balance.

A final tip kill from sophomore Tim Breiter and a couple of Lancers errors closed out the match.

"We've had a strong start," said Peter, "and I thought it was very important that we were able to get the win against Lake Park after falling behind.

"This team has a lot of senior leadership, and we've had some injuries, and that's given sophomores like Tim (Breiter) and Pavle (Todorov) the opportunity to step up."

Pope hit 22 kills on the tourney while Breiter swatted 18; Levitt finished with 53 digs; while senior Nathan Armando had 55 assists.

"We were a little fatigued after playing three straight matches (before the game against Lake Park)," said Armando, "but we had confidence so we were able to fight through that."