Boys volleyball: Stevens guns it as Libertyville rolls

It's settled.

Just as baseball has a pitching gun to track the speed of pitches, volleyball needs a serving gun.

Because you better believe everyone in the Lake Zurich gym on Wednesday night was wondering just how fast Jack Stevens was serving the ball.

The Libertyville senior was absolutely crushing it.

His intimidating jump serve was so powerful that not only was he picking up one ace after another, he got many of them to crash violently into the floor without any hope, or even a semblance, of a Lake Zurich return.

Stevens, who will fit right in playing for NCAA powerhouse Ohio State next year, finished with 8 aces and had 12 points in a row in the second set in Libertyville's 25-13, 25-11 sweep of Lake Zurich in North Suburban Conference action.

"Those are by far, in my opinion, the hardest serves I've ever seen from any high school player, and I've seen a lot of jump serves," said Lake Zurich outside hitter Bartosz Wielgos, who had a strong jump serve of his own and led the Bears (8-16) with 5 kills. "Receiving is very, very difficult when you don't even have any reaction time to call the ball. It's very intimidating."

Stevens also led Libertyville with 13 kills, and many of his kills hit the ground with the force that his serves did.

"Jack is going to Ohio State for a reason. He's the best volleyball player I think I've ever seen. Like ever," Libertyville coach Jenny Smith said. "Tonight, Jack just went off with his serves and it was like a machine. He was just ripping them. They are very tough to return. I would not want to be on the other end of that for sure."

Stevens said that he was actually struggling with his serve in recent weeks and had spent more time on it than usual in practices over the last few days.

"I really wanted to work on it in practice," Stevens said of his serve. "I think I was focusing on contacting it higher and getting higher with the toss and I've been working on jumping higher and it just felt good tonight and I was able to keep it going. As it kept going, I just tried to serve it harder and harder and it worked out."

Libertyville, which moves to 28-5 on the season, is ranked fourth in the state and is the top seed in its sectional, also got 5 kills from Brendan Cook, 4 kills from Colin Hawkinson, 21 assists from setter Carter Schaffnit and 20 digs from Ryan Winiger.

"There's a reason Libertyville is a No. 1 seed. That's just a very good team," Lake Zurich coach Lesly Ravenscraft said.