Stevenson meets, beats Libertyville at Palatine
Although they’re in the same conference, the North Suburban Lake, Stevenson had yet to face its rival Libertyville on the volleyball court this year.
Not in division play yet (they’ll meet in late May), and not at an earlier tournament they both participated in this season — but the Patriots got their chance to take on the Wildcats in Saturday’s Palatine Invitational championship.
With both teams playing at a high level, each coming into the title game undefeated, Stevenson got the upper hand by winning the Palatine crown with a 25-21, 25-18 victory over Libertyville.
West Aurora captured third place with a 3-game victory over host Palatine, which was match point away from advancing to the championship game before a tough 21-25, 25-15, 27-25 loss the the Wildcats in the semifinals.
Fremd was victorious in their final effort of the day, winning 25-21, 20-25, 25-17 over Antioch to claim seventh place.
“I’m very pleased with the effort and the exeuction on offense today,” said Stevenson (17-3) coach Tim Crow, whose team didn’t drop a single game in the two-day tourney. “We ran some different stunts that we hadn’t used all year, so we were able to add a few new things to our repertoire.”
Senior outside Nikola Antonijevic led the Patriots in the title match with 10 kills on 24-of-26 hitting, while classmate Danny Gescheidle, another outside hitter, matched Antonijevic with 10 kills of his own.
“We didn’t block extremely well,” added Crow, “but we got the blocks when we needed them. We were able to start the tournament strong and we kept that up, and kept out composure all the way through.”
The Stevenson coach also had nothing but praise for Libertyville after the win.
“They’re a nice group,” said Crow. “That team does not have a lot of holes, and they’re improving match by match. I have a feeling they’re going to be right there at the end.”
Libertyville senior libero Scott Cooper said fatigue didn’t play a factor in the championship match despite the Wildcats’ grueling, pressure-packed victory over the host Pirates in the semis.
“We were a little tired,” said Cooper, “but we were able to get a little break (before the match against Stevenson), and after warmups, we were right back at it.”
Saturday turned out to be a extremely productive day for Waubonsie Valley. The Warriors had dropped their opening two matches of the invitational on Thursday, but defeated Antioch, Fremd and Prospect on Saturday to win the consolation championship.
The Knights’ Pat McIlwee earned 26 overall kills in the tournament, while Waubonsie sophomore setters Luke Furman (21 assists against Prospect in the consolation win) and Mike Simmons (18 assists) helped sparked the Warriors’ improvement to 18-5 on the season.
“We didn’t have a lot of success Thursday,” said Waubonsie Valley coach Alan Lagger, “so we went back to practice Friday and worked on our serving. We had too many service errors in the first two matches.”
Waubonsie Valley 6-foot-7 senior middle blocker Jordan James, who had 9 kills against the Knights, agreed that improvement from the service line was key to Saturday’s wins.
“We were getting our first serve in today, and that led to getting some runs,” said James. “We were also getting our passing to the net and that enabled us to run our offense.”