Block-to-block wins for Glenbard East

The Glenbard East blockers were reading well Thursday, and as everyone knows reading is fundamental.

The Rams capitalized on phenomenal blocking by Peter Dabrowski and Mark Jones to defeat host Naperville North 25-21, 25-20 to keep the early season DuPage Valley Conference boys volleyball standings completely muddled with those two teams, Naperville Central and Wheaton Warrenville South all carrying one loss.

For the Rams (9-1, 3-1) it was the second big conference win of the week, having topped the Tigers on Tuesday.

Put the two wins together with the 5 victories it took to win last weekend's "Springfest" at Glenbard East and this can certainly go down as The Week of the Ram.

Dabrowski had 8 kill blocks in the match and Jones had 6.

Glenbard East coach Marci Maier marveled at the work of junior Dabrowski, who was activated in the Springfest championship contest after missing the first seven matches of the season.

"I have never had a Glenbard East player get 8 blocks in a match and be that dominant at the net as Peter was tonight," Maier said. "Our blockers were reading real well. This is the best blocking match we've had this season, and that helps our defense out immensely. On Tuesday we played well and it's nice to see this level of play in back-to-back matches."

"We prepared ourselves in practice," Dabrowski said. "They have big swingers on the outside and we did adjust our block. But we have a lot of strengths on every side of the court and that's our advantage."

Game 1 was close, with four early lead changes and Naperville North (8-5, 2-1) ahead 12-11 when two plays by Jones, a block and a kill, gave the Rams the lead for good.

Glenbard East's Dan Mader put away game point with a smash off a Huskies defender's hand.

The Rams were comfortably Game 2, leading 15-10 when they committed a hitting error to give the Huskies a sideout.

Jon Bunge, Naperville North's main offensive threat and the object of a great deal of Glenbard East attention, took over the serve and engineered the Huskies' most sustained drive of the night with 4 service points, 2 of them on aces, to cut the deficit to 1 point.

But the Rams held on by 1 or 2 points until they opened up a little daylight sparked by a Mader kill and both a block and a kill by Dabrowski to practically settle things at 24-19.

Mader had 5 kills on the night, while juniors Jones, Dabrowski and Tim Lovik accounted for 3 each. Mark Kunberger, another junior, was outstanding on defense with 6 digs.

Strausberger praised the Glenbard East blocking.

"They were blocking well," Strausberger said. "I credit their block, but we have to find a way to put the ball in play. We didn't pass well in Game 1 and we made way too many hitting errors, 16 on the night."

Mike Henry led the Huskies with 5 kills, 2 blocks and 5 digs and Dan Orna had 4 kills and 3 digs.