Glenbard East serves up victory over Panthers

A nasty jump serve can be a nice weapon in volleyball, at least when the serves are good.

During Thursday's DuPage Valley Conference showdown, unbeaten Glenbard East rifled off plenty of tough jump serves. Visiting Glenbard North, meanwhile, wasn't so sharp with its serves and that helped the Rams pull off a 25-17, 25-10 sweep of the Panthers in Lombard.

Game 1 was tight for awhile but Glenbard North (16-5, 5-3) missed five serves, including two late, one of which came at game point. The visitors, who took a game from the Rams in a three-game battle in Carol Stream earlier this year, then missed their first two serves in the second game as the Rams (19-0, 8-0) stormed out to an 8-2 lead and never looked back on their way to a laugher in the nightcap.

"Our jump serve was on tonight and when you jump serve well that can add to your offense," Glenbard East coach Marci Maier said. "You get over passes (free balls) and a few more aces. We were firing well. We had it going tonight."

The tall Rams have used their blocking and hard-hitting to stay perfect on the year. On Thursday they mixed in some strong serving and the Panthers just couldn't handle that combination.

"It was back and forth in the first game, but we didn't take advantage when we got the ball," Panthers coach Dedra DeBenedetti said of her team's serving miscues. "That led into the second game and when you start out and miss serves, it just fires them up."

With a big crowd of fans from each school and cable television cameras present, Glenbard East didn't really need much to get fired up. But the memory of the earlier tight battle with the Panthers may only have added to the team's desire to put on a good show on Thursday.

"This was definitely a great match, but I don't think it's our best," Rams setter Mark Jones said after a 6-kill, 10-assists, 2-ace effort. "We can get better in the gym and we strive to get better every day."

Glenbard East wasn't too shabby on defense either, as Peter Wingard and Mark Kunberger each had 5 digs and Piotr Dabrowski had a trio of blocks. Back-to-back aces by Jason Jaent gave the hosts a 16-5 lead in Game 2 and the Panthers never got the deficit to single digits the rest of the night.

"It was exciting to see," DeBenedetti said of her school's nice crowd on the road. "They're great kids and very supportive. I just wish we could have given them a better second game to see."

Chris Kosirog paced the Panthers with 4 kills and Andrew Chartrand added 3.