Saints drop battle with UEC leader Neuqua V.
When your team has recorded back-to-back, third-place state finishes, expectations are naturally very high the next season.
Perhaps that is why Neuqua Valley boys volleyball coach Erich Mendoza wasn't overly impressed with his team's 25-17, 25-23 Upstate Eight Conference triumph over St. Charles East Thursday night in St. Charles.
"We just get aggravated because we know what we're capable of doing," said Mendoza. "We just don't put it together consistently for the whole match."
In the opening game, the Wildcats (8-1, 3-0) fell behind 7-4 before rattling off 6 unanswered points, including a tip kill and block from Tim Brackett (5 kills).
Led by Rob Bauer's 7 first-game kills, Neuqua tallied 20 of the final 30 points for the comfortable win.
"We started out slow with a lot of errors in the beginning," said Mendoza. "Then I think it was 9-9 (actually 7-7) and we pretty much doubled up their score from there. But we still made way too many mistakes (including 3 service errors)."
Things get considerably tighter in Game 2, as the Saints opened with back-to-back kills from Taylor Heavington (5 kills, 4 blocks) and received strong support from Eric Coleman (6 kills, 3 digs), Jack Rasmussen (4 kills, 2 blocks), Taylor Flahaven (3 kills, 2 blocks) and Jeff Jones (12 assists, 3 digs).
Trailing 13-12, the Saints put together a late surge to go back on top 20-17, thanks to a Rasmussen tip kill and a Neuqua hitting error.
St. Charles East (9-6, 1-1) still led 22-20 before the Wildcats scored 5 of the last 6 points to close out the Saints' upset bid.
Six service errors, including back-to-back miscues on the Saints' final 2 offerings, came back to bite the home team.
"They were just silly errors," said Saints coach Kate McCullagh. "That cost us the game, especially in a tight game like that."
Despite the loss, St. Charles East took away several positives after battling toe-to-toe with the talented Wildcats.
"When they fight that hard at the end, it's kind of hard to go in there (locker room) and yell at them," said McCullagh. "They're all just as disappointed as me but we talked about the good things.
"We made a lot of adjustments in the second game, which was good. There were so many positive things in the second game. I told them not to let the loss overshadow the good things that were done."
Bauer (10 kills), Brackett, Derek Menendez (3 kills, 2 blocks), Jon Coraglio (4 kills) and setter Alex Onsager (23 assists) paced the Wildcats, who now will prepare for Saturday's Streamwood tournament.
"We felt good in the first game but the second game - it's been kind of a theme of ours," said Brackett. "We seem to have a rougher second game.
"We think it's a mental thing more than anything. We have to work on coming out and putting away opponents that we should put away."
Mendoza agreed.
"Granted, we won and we're 8-1," said the coach. "It's the same start that we had last year. We're proud of that but not satisfied. I told the guys not to take winning for granted because you never know."