Boys volleyball: Benet finishes strong against Addison Trail

Thank goodness for Benet that boys volleyball coach Jeff Steinberg has drilled in his team the importance of staying focused late and finishing strong.

In each set Wednesday against visiting Addison Trail, the Redwings jumped ahead 10-6 only to trail late against a strong Blazers squad. But Benet remained poised, made clutch plays down the stretch and pulled out an exciting, 25-21, 25-21 nonconference sweep of the Blazers (20-9).

Addison Trail fought back for a 19-17 lead in Game 1 and a 20-18 lead in Game 2, only to have the Redwings rally late with big blocks and strong defense leading the way.

"That's our goal for this season. Our coach has really been focusing on pushing till the end," said 6-foot-5 senior middle blocker Connor Simchak. "Instead of letting up at the end we play harder. That's kind of been the theme this year."

The 22-10 Redwings used an 8-2 close to take the opener, with Simchak and John Folts each picking up late blocks, and the Blazers plagued by a few hitting errors. The end of the second set was more of the same as Addison Trail led 20-18 following a Redwings mis-hit and a winner by Blaser Michael Strycharz. A missed Blazers serve then cut the gap to 20-19 and the Redwings again turned up the blocking late to pull out the set and the match.

"It was good to see that we kept fighting back," Steinberg said. "Going down 20-18 and coming back, just keeping our mind one point at a time, we pulled that set out."

Again, the Blazers were hurt by unforced errors down the stretch, but again Benet got a boost from its blocking, as freshman Augie Mazza and Simchak collected blocks for critical points late.

"Our coach really hypes us up a lot," said Simchak, who finished with 4 kills and 3 blocks. "We even feed off the other team's energy, which is pretty nice. So them getting excited, we really feed off of that and it helps us play hard. We were pretty confident the whole time and we went out and secured the win."

Blazers coach Chad Grant was impressed by the Redwings' strong block, but also knows his team needs to play a little cleaner down the stretch if it wants to knock off strong teams.

"It seemed like once they got the ball back in the 20s, we just either couldn't get the pass or shot ourselves in the foot with unforced errors," Grant said. "They're a good team, though. It was a dogfight.

"We've just got to be a little better with our block defensively. I would say blocking was the biggest difference in the game. They put a lot of balls to the floor and we didn't."

Wednesday was another solid match for Redwings senior Tommy Kmieciak, who has made a smooth transition this season from libero to setter. He recorded 17 assists and 10 digs in the match.

"The games were going back and forth kind of the whole time," he said. "With our streaking at the end we eventually just pulled it out. But I'm really confident in everybody so I can get everybody the ball. Our middles are going insane right now so I was able to feed everybody and they were able to put it down."

Jack Andringa led Benet with 6 kills on the night, while Justin Werderitch and David Zielinski each had 7 winners for Addison Trail.