Boys volleyball: St. Charles East tops Streamwood

Michael Carbonell provided the exclamation point on St. Charles East's boys volleyball team's season-opening 25-14, 25-16 victory over Streamwood Monday night in St. Charles.

Carbonell slammed a pair of booming kills from the back row for points No. 24 and No. 25 to finish with a match-high 9. They came on sets from Jake Lauger who had 19 assists, also getting middle Dom Sciortino (4 kills) and Nick Cayton (2 kills) among others involved in the attack.

"Great way to start the season," Carbonell said. "We are really close this year. Most of us were on the team last year. I felt really good in warm-ups. Jake has been setting me well in practice, we play club together and it showed tonight."

St. Charles East (1-0, 1-0 in the Upstate Eight Conference River Division) led for most of the night, trailing briefly at the start of both games. The Saints also get a lift defensively from Chris Foerstel with 17 digs.

Streamwood (0-1, 0-1) started the match with a kill from Miguel Padilla. The Sabres followed with a service error and then a couple attack errors as the mistakes helped the Saints grab the lead.

That's to be somewhat expected for a Sabres team that went 24-16 last year but returns only 2 starters, setter Jeremy Gumila and outside Matt Curyla.

"We looked scared, the boys looked scared," Streamwood coach Lisa Harrison said. "Definitely a lot of nerves out there, a lot of new guys playing together. Couple guys coming off injuries. It was definitely a pretty good mix of things happening out there."

Jim Atilano fired an ace for a 12-8 Saints lead and Harrison called her first timeout, and she took her second moments later after back-to-back kills from Carbonell made it 18-11.

Jason Turnbull's 5-point service run included 2 more aces for a 23-14 lead, and St. Charles East closed out the opening game on Sciortino's block and Lauger's kill.

The second set played out much like the first. The Sabres took a couple brief early leads including 3-2 on a block from Justin Shomaker.

Trailing 4-3, the Saints went on a 13-5 run to seize control. Drew Pearce put down a kill during the surge while Shane Breslin had a 4-point service spree that included a perfect shot down the line by Carbonell and a couple Sabre hitting errors.

A final service error by the Sabres gave the Saints the serve at 23-16, and Carbonell did the rest of the work with his final 2 kills.

"A little first-game jitters but overall I'm happy with how they carried themselves," Saints coach Kate McCullagh said. "Everybody stepped up and did what they needed to do. We've played so much against each other in practice it's nice to play a game against people who aren't ourselves."