Boys volleyball: Farmer gets into the act in another Glenbard West win

J.T. Ardell, Cameron Lilly, Matthew Scruggs, Johnny Winkler are all so formidable when attacking the net. It's really not fair when Glenbard West setter Sean Farmer makes himself into an offensive weapon as well instead of just passing to teammates.

No wonder the Hilltoppers made Wednesday's 25-22, 25-13 nonconference victory against Brother Rice look so easy.

The Crusaders (25-8), the No. 1 seed at the upcoming Reavis sectional, never led. They managed to draw even with the two-time defending state champion Hilltoppers (32-1) just three times, none later in the match than 2-2.

"We served and defended well," Farmer said. "Our transition offense was very good too, which was awesome. And then when they were serving we just really didn't let them get on any runs."

Glenbard West earned the No. 1 seed at the Oswego sectional. The playoffs begin May 22.

"We passed awesome, which allowed me to run our offense at a pretty high level, which is great," Farmer said. "Our hitters put the ball down. We dug a lot of balls. We really shut down their big hitters, so we were able to pull away and get a pretty good win that second set."

Farmer, a senior and University of California-Irvine recruit, finished with 6 kills to go with his 26 assists.

"If I have the opportunity to, it's a pretty high-efficiency play in terms of point scoring," Farmer said. "If the opportunity is there and I can see the block and they're not going up with me, I'm going to try to put it down. I had the opportunity to do that a lot in this game just because we were passing really well. We were getting the ball where it needed to be."

"When you get one kill you keep going for it," Brother Rice coach Daniel Dwyer added. "We kept coming inside and we wanted our middle to help out there, and he was just getting there late. If I was Farmer I'd take advantage of it too."

For Hilltoppers coach Christine Giunta-Mayer, Farmer's ability to put points away himself is a great example of his value to the team.

"He has done such a good job of knowing what we need," Giunta-Mayer said. "He's such a stat guy. He can tell what's hot, and so he kind of plays off that a little bit. He is running everybody. I'm so impressed with him right now. ... It's a guessing game for the other team if he can keep it up."