Spartans get going quickly against Streamwood

With his team returning 10 players from last year's sectional final squad, St. Francis boys volleyball coach Mike Lynch felt his team could be ready for a fast start to the 2008 season.

Sure enough, the Spartans turned in a crisp 25-14, 25-8 home victory Monday night over Streamwood in just their second game of the year.

St. Francis (2-0) jumped out to an early 13-4 lead in the first game, establishing a strong offense right away. Senior outside hitter Jeff Dixon notched 3 kills over the Spartans' first 5 points to set the tone.

"Things were clicking kind of like midseason form, and things are coming together a little bit quicker than they have in the past couple of years," Lynch said. "We thought that could be the case, but you never know."

The St. Francis offense kept firing all match long, allowing the Spartans to build an identical 13-4 advantage at the outset of the second game. Team-wide balance on the offensive front greatly encouraged Lynch, as seniors Joey Murnane, Bob Vonderhaar and Aaron Metzler each tied for the team lead with 5 kills.

"We're running a quicker offense. At times we have all three hitters in the air when the pass is up," he said. "We're running a lot more balance this year. The passing is the there, the timing and the connection is there. Usually it's not there at the beginning of the year."

St. Francis quickly extinguished any runs Streamwood (0-3) tried to mount in the second game, using a more energetic and active defense to hold the Sabres to single digits. According to Lynch, the inspired effort came after the Spartans created multiple service errors in Game 1.

"(In the first game) our defense was getting balls up, but they weren't playable balls," he said. "In the second game, our passes were there, and that's what opens up all three hitters in the offense."

Streamwood figured out the Spartans' offensive strategy, yet struggled to defend against the quickness on the other side of the net.

"It kind of became clear to us as the match went on that they were going to be getting a lot of balls to their middles, and our transition defense just really didn't match up to the quickness of their offense," Streamwood coach David Buehring said. "I feel more so (though) that our passing struggled, and we sent a lot of easy free balls that they could run anything that they wanted to."