Boys volleyball: Maleski, Stevenson serve up a winner against Lake Forest
The radar gun simply verifies what everyone on the Stevenson boys volleyball team already knows.
Grant Maleski, Stevenson's 6-foot-9 power hitter, fires out bullets when he serves (and when he hits at the net).
"He's in the mid-50s (miles per hour) on his jump serves," Stevenson coach Eric Goolish said of Maleski, a senior. "He's bombing the ball away.
"They are going to expect him to be in the 60s next year when he plays at UCLA, so he's pretty much there already."
But Maleski says he has more work to do than to just add a few miles per hour to his jump serve. After missing nearly two months of the season last year with a broken wrist, Maleski wants to stay healthy all season and lead Stevenson to a long state tournament run.
The Patriots have not been downstate in Maleski's career, and he started as a freshman.
"It's good to finally be healthy," Maleski said. "It's my senior season. I'm excited to see what I can give to the team. And I want to go out with a bang."
Maleski and his teammates are off to a good start. They got their sixth win of the young season on Wednesday night by sweeping North Suburban Conference foe Lake Forest 25-20, 25-16 in Lincolnshire.
It was the league opener for both teams. Stevenson improved to 6-2 overall and Lake Forest dropped to 1-2.
Maleski had a match-high 10 kills on 14 attempts with no errors.
"He is the best player in northern Illinois," Lake Forest coach Steve Wolf said of Maleski. "He's easily the best hitter in the conference and probably the best jump server in the conference.
"I've known him for six years. He's worked really hard and his game has become very diverse. He's the real deal. That's why he's going to UCLA."
Wolf says that many of his players are at the opposite end of the spectrum of Maleski. He's got a lot of young, inexperienced players who are just learning the game. Lake Forest starts two sophomores.
The Scouts never trailed Stevenson by much throughout the entire match, but could never muster the fortitude to fully overtake the Patriots.
"We are very young and we play young at times," Wolf said. "We just need more time on the court, more touches."
Sudhish Gogula and Matthew Cliffer added 4 kills apiece for Stevenson. Setters Will Sorenson and Haddon Kay had 12 and 9 assists respectively.
Austin Zhou had 10 digs and Stevenson had 11 aces as a team.
"We have a lot of returning guys on this team," Maleski said. "The experience is definitely there for us to have a really good season. If we get the chemistry down, we've got the physicality to give any team in the state a good challenge."