Waubonsie takes third place, Glenbard W. fifth at Bartlett
Hersey outside hitter Griffin Dwyer liked the way things were looking on Saturday.
Huskies coach Jodi Blazek liked the way Dwyer was looking during the championship match of Saturday's Bartlett boy's volleyball tournament.
Blazek led all players with 12 kills as Hersey took down the host Hawks 25-19, 25-17 to win their second straight championship at Bartlett.
"We took a tough loss to Wheeling on Thursday and had a meeting yesterday," said Dwyer, who finished the tournament with 42 kills. "We talked about having some confidence and today we did with everything we did. We're starting to get it together."
Hersey (13-10) won all four of Saturday's matches in two games, sweeping St. Ignatius (25-7, 25-10), Rolling Meadows (25-18, 25-18) and Glenbard West (25-11, 25-10) in pool play.
"We were awesome today," Blazek said. "We had great all-around play from everyone."
Although the team effort led the Huskies to its championship, Dwyer's play was defiantly the catalyst. In both games against Bartlett, Dwyer broke open early ties by scoring in bunches. His extended a 14-13 lead to 16-13 with 3 straight kills in Game 1. For an encore Dwyer broke an 11 all tie with a kill and then scored 4 more times in the Huskies' next 6 points to give Hersey an 18-13 advantage. Bartlett was not able to rebound in either game. Dwyer finished the tournament with a 95 percent hitting efficiency.
Despite falling in the championship match, Bartlett enjoyed a successful Saturday winning each on its three pool-play matches in two games as well. The Hawks (12-10) swept conference opponent Waubonsie Valley (25-18, 25-21) and defeated Plainfield Central (25-21, 25-15) and West Aurora (25-23, 25-18) to earn its place in the championship match.
"We came out and played real well against Waubonsie Valley," Bartlett coach John Breines said. "Against Hersey, we just had a couple times where they got a few points and we didn't."
Bartlett was without starters Jeremy Sanchez (injured hamstring), Tim Rendall and Scott Kuehn (suspended). In their absence the Hawks got some huge play from Chris Guimon. The senior finished with 10 of his 28 kills in the championship match.
"We were coming off a rough stretch of losses," Guimon said. "The three wins in a row was a real confidence boost. The whole tournament I see as a positive."
Waubonsie Valley finished third, edging Rolling Meadows 25-21, 26-24. Glenbard West took fifth over Plainfield Central 25-12, 25-17 and St. Ignatius beat West Aurora 25-23, 25-22 to take seventh.
Rolling Meadows finished the day 2-2 and played to opposite extremes of its potential. After convincingly defeating Glenbard West (25-19, 25-21) and St. Ignatius (25-23, 25-15) in pool play, coach Janet Opels said her squad did not reach its full potential in the third-place match.
"We did not do as good as we thought we should have done," Opels said. "We showed signs of brilliance and then stood in dead silence with no help. It was one extreme or the other."
The Mustangs (10-10) were led by Matt Vinezeano and Tyler Vinezeano.