Boys volleyball: Rolling Meadows meets Wheeling's challenge

Turns out all it took to get Rolling Meadows' boys volleyball team fired up was a little adversity.

Make that even more fired up.

Looking to get off to a quick start in the Mid-Suburban League this year, the Mustangs were poised and ready to get things going Tuesday night against visiting Wheeling in the MSL East opener for both teams.

"We've been waiting for this all week, " said Meadows junior Logan Reese. "We had a great week of practice and we were focused on coming out tonight with intensity."

And after falling behind a strong Wildcats team, the Mustangs staged a major rally.

Meadows came back from a 23-21 deficit in the first set to win, then rallied again in the second set to score a 25-23, 25-18 victory.

"This was so important for us," said Meadows coach Kevin Bourn, whose team was led by a stellar defensive performance from libero Marc Quezada (8 digs). "We ended last season winning 10 of our last 12, and we wanted to build on that."

"I thought we played really well," said Quezada. "There's always room for improvement, of course, but we played hard and that's what we need to do to win."

Tyler LaRosa was 16-for-20 on attack with 10 kills for Wheeling, which looked dominant at times but couldn't sustain the effort.

"We were a little too one-dimensional on offense," said Wildcats coach Jason Kopkowski. "There wasn't much variation. We didn't spread the ball around enough to succeed, but Meadows is a good, scrappy team."

Wheeling (2-5, 0-1) was just 2 points away from taking the first set at 23-21 when Bourn called a much needed timeout.

"He (Bourn) told us to just play our game," said Meadows senior Christian Anderson, "and focus on getting the ball to our main hitters. We couldn't worry so much about how they (Wheeling) were playing."

After the pep talk, Reese got two consecutive kills to tie the set at 23, then Arthur Barczak put down a hard spike to set Meadows up for game point.

Kyle Kornblum got the final kill for the Mustangs, a soft tip that fell untouched on the Wheeling side of the net.

"We were getting a little frustrated," said Bourn. "It was hard to put a ball down against them. No matter where we tried to hit it seemed they had two blockers there waiting."

Wheeling led set two early before consecutive aces from Tim Bouraoui of Meadows (3-4, 1-0) turned the tide.

Szymon Kleniuk and and Bouraoui hit aces later in the set to extend the lead, and a Reese kill at match point gave the win to the home team.

"It's important that we get off to a fast start," said Anderson. "We started slow last year but halfway through the season we were able to pick up the pace. We wanted to come out strong tonight."

Tommy Murphy led Meadows on attack with 10 kills while Reese had 8.

Oleg Boyanivskyy hit 5 kills for Wheeling while teammate Kyle Bagarella, a setter, finished 45-of-47 with 16 assists.

"I saw some good things tonight," said Kopkowski. "Our defense played with a lot of heart, and when our outsides got the opportunities they made the most of them."