Young St. Francis fights back for win

The youthful St. Francis boys volleyball team grew up a little with each passing game on Monday.

The Spartans, with only one senior among the starters, dropped the first game to visiting Geneva 26-24 but came back with a pair of decisive victories 25-19 and 25-15 to stay undefeated at 2-0.

"I believe we had some jitters in Set 1," the Spartans' Steve Burns said. "We didn't really have a feel for the game. And we had no chemistry. We got down on ourselves when they got going and gave the set up."

The Spartans were at game-point leading 24-23, and then they surrendered three points to drop the game.

"We came out with a lot more energy and rhythm in the next two sets," Burns said. "There was more talking, we were seeing the court better and we stopped trying too hard."

St. Francis dominated Game 2 until that got to game point.

They were leading 24-12, before the Vikings (6-5) put together a 7-point run. Jack O'Connell put down a kill to ice the game for the Spartans.

And the young Spartans came out with more confidence in Game 3. They passed well, blocked effectively and the setters Jack McGuire and Timmy Pisarski found a variety of hitters who converted their accurate sets to kills.

"We have a lot of good hitters," Pisarski said. "We did a great job of executing."

"You could tell looking into their eyes going into the second game, that they got this," said St. Francis coach Mike Lynch. "This was only our second match of the season. We learned from our mistakes, our block got much better and we got real good first contact. The setters were confident running our offense. They kept Geneva guessing by getting all our hitters involved."

Lynch acknowledged that his inexperienced team made some rookie mistakes early but cautioned observers not to underestimate the Spartans, maintaining that this season will be much more than a rebuilding year.

"We have good athletes, they work hard and it's starting to show," Lynch said. "They could have packed it in after that first game, but they picked it up and hung in there for the victory."

Matt Baggio led the team in kills with 10, and right behind him in the Spartans' balanced attack was Burns with 9 and Pisarski with 8. Libero Jon Messa, the lone senior, picked up 21 digs. McGuire had 20 assists and Pisarski 13.

Geneva was led by Nick Buseski's 7 kills, while Luke Will and Sam Wulfkuhle added 5 each. David Franz dished out 16 assists. Franz and Josh Haston led the Vikings with 9 digs each.

"We're trying to find our consistency," said Vikings coach Annie Seitelman. "We missed a lot of serves at crucial moments. We competed well in the first game, but we dug ourselves a hole with poor serve-receive."