Boys volleyball: Broken rules thwart Lake Park's title dream

Lake Park broke the rules, and Lincoln-Way East broke its heart.

"We have team rules," said Lake Park coach Tim Murphy. "You don't miss a serve at game point. You don't miss a serve out of a timeout. You don't go from an ace to a missed serve. We didn't necessarily follow all those rules today."

The Lancers broke those team rules, and a few more as well, and found themselves on the outside looking in at the state championship game after Lincoln-Way East handed them a 25-21, 27-25 loss in an IHSA boys volleyball semifinal Saturday at Hoffman Estates.

The Lancers later took third place in the state when they defeated Brother Rice 20-25, 25-22, 25-22.

After falling behind 7-2 and 18-10 and dropping Game 1 against Lincoln-Way East, Lake Park (38-2) took leads of 15-12 and 20-18 in the second set appeared to be on the brink of extending the match.

But service errors at 23-22 and 24-23 and a hitting error at 25-25 allowed Lincoln-Way East to close out the set and the match on a kill by 6-foot-1 junior outside Ian Piet.

"Yesterday, we watched all four matches as a team, and we said whichever team made fewer errors in any single game was the team that won every single game," Murphy said. "I bet if you go back to the stat sheet, they had fewer missed serves and fewer hitting errors than we did.

"We lost by 6 points, and we probably had six or seven more serving and hitting errors than they did," the coach added. "That's the difference in the game."

Piet had 10 kills to lead Lincoln-Way East (33-7).

"Some of the balls that (Piet) was hitting, sets out of system that far off the net, that's some big-time stuff and big-time swings for a kid who's only a junior," said Lincoln-Way East coach Kris Fiore said. "He made some real big plays at the end."

Jordan Haigh and Jack Fischer had 10 kills apiece for Lake Park, which hit just .179 as a team and was guilty of 6 service errors and numerous net violations. Nick Martinski added 7 kills and Justin Yost had 29 assists.

"Lincoln-Way East came out and played a fantastic match of volleyball," Murphy said. "They were in system, they blocked, and they were well-prepared. They made plays in the 20s. They terminated balls. They had a couple of blocks. We did not do that in the 20s."

Matt Shemanski had 6 kills and Jake Snyder added 23 assists and 2 aces for Lincoln-Way East, which benefitted from the closing of Lincoln-Way North last year to add some key pieces to an already talented roster.

"We knew the pressure was on (the Lancers) and I think it got to them a little bit," Fiore said. "It took us a little bit of time to get going with the whole change of the schools and morphing two teams into one, but we've been playing pretty cohesive volleyball since the beginning of May."