Barrington turns back Hoffman Estates
The Hoffman Estates boys volleyball team is off to its best Mid-Suburban West start in coach Dan Hutton’s tenure, with early conference wins over perennial powers Schaumburg and Fremd.
So when the Hawks came calling to Barrington on Tuesday night, the Broncos weren’t able to take them lightly.
“We’ve seen the results — we know how well they’ve been playing,” said Barrington coach Rob Ridenour of their division rivals. “The guys were excited to play them tonight, and when you have two teams coming in at 2-0, you know it’s going to be fun.”
The result turned out to be even more enjoyable for the Broncos (8-2, 3-0), as they took only 42 minutes to stay unbeaten in conference play with a 25-9, 25-18 victory over Hoffman.
“Every year,” said Ridenour, “you have teams with different strengths, and this season our team has the size and athleticism to go pretty far. Plus, up to this point they have the work ethic to match.”
Six-foot-3 outside hitter Matt Logue sparked the Barrington attack with 10 kills, and the senior also showed he can make his mark on other sections of the stat sheet by serving 3 aces and recording 6 digs.
“When Matt hits the ball like he did tonight,” said 6-foot-8 junior middle blocker Tommy Leonard, “we can spread the floor and it works well for us.
“We also got our middles going, which allowed our outside hitters and right sides to worry less about the block.”
After a tentative beginning by Hoffman (the Hawks trailed the first game 8-1), Barrington ran away with the Game 1 win. But Hoffman recovered and rebounded in Game 2.
An early kill and ace by senior Victor Lugo put the Hawks up early, and Hoffman was still in it midway through, knotting the game up at 14-all after a kill by sophomore Sean Habel.
“They (Barrington) started out with a lot of confidence, and we started slow,” said Hutton. “Our passing was lacking.”
Barrington took the lead back on a tip by setter Taylor Ganzer (22 assists), and with Logue dominating with his jump serve, the Broncos ran off 6 of the next 7 points to help secure the victory.
Senior Kyle Caldwell was 9-of-10 hitting with 3 kills for Hoffman, which showed their disappointment at not extending their MSL win streak to 3.
“We lost a ton of height from last year’s team,” said Caldwell, “but this season we’ve got a lot of athletic players who give 100 percent effort every time out.”
“We came in tonight after a rough weekend,” said Hutton, referring to Hoffman’s 1-4 effort in Saturday’s Warren tourney, “so I was hoping we’d bounce back tonight in conference play.
“We were competetive against some good teams at Warren, but we didn’t do enough to win. Now we’ve got to focus our efforts on playing tough Thursday night against Palatine on our home court.”