Neuqua Valley's night from start
From the time the Neuqua Valley boys volleyball team assembled at school before leaving for Friday night's Bolingbrook sectional semi-final match against Oswego, the Wildcats knew it was going to be their night.
"Mentally we knew we had it even before we got on the bus," libero Kevin Begley said. "During warmups and during the match we had a mind-set that we were going to win. And it never left us. It was excitement. We were really on tonight."
The Wildcats (35-3) followed through on that positives attitude with a dominating 25-16, 25-17 win over Oswego to advance to the sectional finals at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
A victory Tuesday would send the Wildcats to the state tournament's Elite Eight for the third year in a row.
"Everything worked in our favor tonight," Neuqua's Bobby Effner said. "Passing, setting, hitting, serving. We practiced well. We got a good pregame speech from our coaching staff. And everyone was involved on the court."
"We played our game," said Neuqua Valley coach Erich Mendoza. "We were aggressive with our serves. And our passing went real well which allowed us to run our offense."
Oswego (22-7-4) began the night with some high energy of their own, staying close to Neuqua and even leading several times early in Game 1.
The Panthers had the lead at 10-9 when a kill and a block by the Wildcats' Rob Bauer put Neuqua ahead for good.
There was still only 4 points separating the two teams at 19-15, but a series of Oswego errors, which they had kept to a minimum early on, gave Neuqua a 6-1 run at the end of the game.
In Game 2 the Wildcats were trailing 4-3 when a vicious spike down the line by right-side Grant Hedrick tied it up.
That set the tone, and the Wildcats kicked it into gear with a 10-1 run as many of the points scored by the likes of Bauer, Hedrick, Derek Menendez and Tim Brackett landed with force on the Oswego side of the net.
"When we got those good kills and blocks that went straight down, it deflated them a little," Mendoza said.
Bauer led the Wildcats with 11 kills and 2 blocks, and Menendez came through with 7 kills and 3 blocks. Brackett added 5 kills, while Begley dug the ball 8 times and Alex Onsager kept everyone in the offense with 23 assists."
Jake Wollenberg led the Panthers with 7 kills and Mark Meurer had 6 digs.
"Our team came out wanting to play," said Oswego coach Erica Lorenz. "But after they got a couple of runs on us we made mental mistakes. They got in our heads. They have a talented team and I don't mind them getting good hits, but our kids should make adjustments. Tonight, Neuqua took us out of the game mentally."