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Boys volleyball: Glenbard North tops Naperville North in close match

Glenbard North's Eric Tripp did not hesitate.

"It was an out-of-system ball and Ravi (Patel) just put it up for me," Tripp said. "I saw there was no block so I took advantage of it."

Tripp directed Patel's off-balance dig to an open spot behind Naperville North's defense to close out a back-and-forth third game and give the Panthers a 25-21, 20-25, 25-23 victory in a DuPage Valley Conference clash Thursday in Naperville.

"This was a big game for us," Tripp said. "We were on a two-game losing streak so we really want to get our confidence back. This was a real nice win for us."

Glenbard North (17-9, 2-2) took advantage of 10 hitting errors by the hosts to build a 17-11 lead en route to winning Game 1. But Naperville North (10-21, 1-3) broke a 16-16 tie in Game 2 on a kill by Thomas Buchler and never looked back.

"I think our serve-receive broke down a little bit in the second game," said Glenbard North junior setter Sanchit Khaitan, who played the entire match with senior setter Trent Weber sidelined with an injury. "Our offense wasn't as fast because of that and we weren't able to run tempo.

"But in the third set we played with fire, we got our middles involved and we took it to them," he said.

A 3-0 run on 2 kills by 6-foot-4 sophomore middle Ian Krohn sandwiched around a putaway by Tripp broke a 13-13 tie in Game 3 and forced a Naperville North timeout.

The Panthers still led at 22-19, but the Huskies came out of another timeout with a little 3-0 run of their own before kills by Patel and Krohn set up Tripp's winner.

Tripp had 13 kills and 15 digs for Glenbard North, which also got 15 digs from Nate Perez, 13 kills from Patel, 5 kills apiece from Ray Dave and Krohn and 31 assists and 3 kills from Khaitan.

"Trent is one of the best setters in the state, but I think we'll be fine without him for a while," Khaitan said.

Sam Wittwer led Naperville North with 12 kills. Joe Muckerheide added 9 kills, Buchler had 6 kills, sophomore John Jaworski added 18 assists and 9 digs and Connor Sheehan had 12 digs.

"This has been our whole season, although I think we've been coming out of it a little bit lately," said Naperville North coach Nate Bornancin. "We've been close going three sets with some of the top teams in the state. We just haven't been able to get over the hump.

"I thought Sam (Wittwer) did a phenomenal job and Joe (Muckerheide) really stepped up for us big-time," Bornancin added. "I really can't ask for much more. The guys played hard. It was fun to watch. It was fun to coach."

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