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Boys volleyball: Neuqua Valley reigns over Tiger Classic

After having never before reached the Gold Bracket at the highly competitive Tiger Classic, Neuqua Valley's boys volleyball team made sure to really enjoy its stay Saturday at Wheaton Warrenville South.

The Wildcats, who entered the 24-team tourney as a second seed in one of eight three-team pools, knocked off top-seeded Lincoln-Way West in three sets while winning their pool earlier this week and then really made a statement in Saturday's Gold Bracket.

First the unbeaten Wildcats knocked off Barrington, then followed that up with a three-set win over Lincoln-Way East, the state's top-ranked team and last year's state runner-up.

That impressive win advanced Neuqua Valley into the Tiger Classic championship against a Lake Park team that took third in the state last spring. The Wildcats turned in another stellar effort in sweeping the Lancers 25-16, 25-18 with tourney MVP Jeremy Grove contributing 18 kills and 6 digs.

"This tournament, oh my gosh, this tournament is so fun because it's all the best teams in the area," said Grove, a 6-foot-1 senior outside hitter. "We were fortunate to play the Lincoln-Ways and then Lake Park in the championship, so I think we're really measuring ourselves against a lot of the best teams in the state.

"Now our next goal is to the win the Glenbard West (tourney). We finally get to measure ourselves against (the defending state champs)."

In Saturday's title match, Grove unleashed big swing after big swing, but the 7-0 Wildcats also played great on defense and 6-foot-7 setter Kevin Kauling did a little of everything. Kauling had 23 assists, 5 blocks and 3 aces while joining teammates Grove and libero Francisco Comas in claiming all-tourney honors.

"At this level you're going to have kids that can hit the ball," Wildcats coach Erich Mendoza said. "We preach defense. If we block and we dig, that will be the difference. That was the difference in all of our matches. We just passed better and we had better ball control."

The first set was tied 8-8 when middle hitter Jeremy Cardenas' kill started a 16-6 run that put Neuqua in command. The second set was similar. The Lancers trailed just 7-6 following a kill from Austin Bayner before a couple big swings from Grove helped the Wildcats build a 17-12 lead on their way to the sweep.

"That's a tough team. Especially with that setter. He just makes a lot of things happen for them," said Lake Park coach Brian Fischer, who was impressed by Neuqua as a whole and Kauling in particular. "He moves the ball very well; distributes so well. And they got a lot of solo blocks on us just because of his ability to make reads, to see what we were doing on the other side of the net. That was really impressive."

Lake Park (4-1), which defeated Brother Rice in the semis, was led this week by all-tourney outside hitters Nick Martinski and Jordan Haigh. In the finals Martinski had 9 kills and Haigh added 5.

Neuqua's big win over Lincoln-Way East in the semis carried over into the finals, Kauling said.

"I think we had a lot of momentum from that last game and it carried over and we felt like we could just cruise through anyone," the Wildcats senior said. "Lincoln-Way (East) was rated No. 1 in the state and I think we had something to prove."

And that they did.

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