Face it: Mundelein's awfully good

Brian Chin got all chin.

Talk about chin music.

His perfectly struck spike during another Mundelein boys volleyball win Wednesday night hit an unsuspecting Stevenson player flush in the face. The ball ricocheted toward Stevenson's bench and wasn't retrieved.

So impressed was Chin's teammate Andrew Roscoe that Roscoe couldn't help but scream about it to fellow Mustangs.

"It was a hard hit," Roscoe said. "(Stevenson's player) didn't even have any reaction to it. Usually you'll see (players') hands go up or something right before it hits them."

Mundelein's 25-21, 25-17 flattening of host Stevenson kept its perfect season intact. The Mustangs take a 9-0 mark (2-0 North Suburban) into Friday's Lake County tournament. Their first opponent?

Stevenson. The two teams rematch at 5 p.m. Friday at Vernon Hills.

Senior-laden Mundelein, which won the Hoffman Estates tournament last month, remains a confident group.

"Basically, we've been playing together since sophomore year on varsity, and we've played club together (too)," said Chin, a senior. "We came into the season with a lot of teamwork (already established) so that's an advantage we have over a lot of other clubs."

"We've played a long time together and it's just translated right into this season," Roscoe said. "We've been highlighting this season for like our whole volleyball career."

Mitchell Baumgartner and Patrick Lentz led Mundelein against Stevenson (3-4, 0-1) with 7 and 6 kills, respectively. Connor Johnson slammed four and Chin clobbered three, including his attack in Game 2 that bounced off the face of that Stevenson player, who, to his credit, seemed unfazed.

"It was like a broken play," Chin said. "I just got set and I felt the block drift apart. There was a hole so I just decided to swing at it."

Roscoe finished 40-of-40 setting with 21 assists and also served 2 aces. Chris Kelly was credited with 10 digs.

Mundelein was coming off a Monday win over Carmel, which extended the Mustangs to three games, something they weren't expecting.

"(Carmel) played an incredible defensive match that night," Mundelein coach George Dressen Jr. said. "Here with Stevenson, they just blocked extremely well. In that first game and in the beginning of the second game, their block took our offense out for a little while until we were able to regroup and get our composure back, and believe in our swinging again."

"Blocking is one of our strengths," Stevenson coach Tim Crow said.

The Patriots were even with Mundelein at 17-17 in Game 1 before a pair of unforced errors gave momentum back to the visitors. Lentz dropped a kill that caught Stevenson off guard and put Mundelein up 23-21, and the game ended on two more Patriot errors.

A John Baader kill got Stevenson within 11-10 in Game 2, but Baumgartner answered with a kill and the Mustangs were on their way to victory again.

Travis Naftzger led Stevenson with 6 kills, while Bryan Kim had five. Baader buried four.

"We just didn't play very clean," Crow said. "Against a team that has that experience and talent level, you got to play a lot cleaner to win the game."