Vernon Hills wins Maine East volleyball title

Vernon Hills' boys volleyball team picked up its first tournament championship Saturday.

At Maine East, the Cougars went 4-1 to improve to 5-2 overall. They defeated Elgin, Niles West, St. Patrick and Lakes, while losing to Maine East.

"We've been struggling to find some defensive intensity (in losses to Deerfield Thursday and Maine East Saturday morning), but once we found it, we were a much better team," coach Chris Curry said. "We found a nice lineup, finally, that's vocal and active, which allowed us to play a better brand of volleyball against St. Pats.

"Our serving remained aggresive throughout. Quintin Anderson played excellent libero when he was out there (6 of 10 games) and two of our junior hitters, Robin Moy and Pat Stone, really picked us up offensively, giving us a solid 4 weapons (with Ernie Choi and Keegan Harris)."

Harris led Vernon Hills with 25 kills, while Choi and Stone pounded 22 and 20, respectively. Anderson recorded a team-best 60 digs and 4 aces. Sam Lee delivered 6 aces, while Moy and Alex Tartakovsky registered 6 blocks apiece.

"It's good early in the season to run all 14 guys out there and see what they can do," Curry said. "It caused us to be a little inconsistent this week, but it should help us later in the season."