Elk Grove beats Hoffman Estates
Elk Grove boys volleyball coach Dan Windholz and his staff may have been a bit concerned when the Grenadiers fell behind Hoffman Estates 4-0 in the deciding game of Tuesday’s Conant regional semifinal.
But according to outside hitter Aaron Kraus, he and his teammates weren’t worried at all.
“I’m never nervous with this team,” said Kraus, who hammered 9 kills as fifth-seeded Elk Grove overcame a valiant effort by their Mid-Suburban League rival Hawks in a 25-17, 18-25, 25-18 victory.
The Grens (20-12) ran off 11 consecutive points midway through Game 3 to take control.
“We’ve got a great bunch of guys, and we’ve had games like this before,” added Kraus, a junior. “We’ve been down but we’ve always been able to come back and we did it again tonight.”
Michal Kawa added 9 kills for Elk Grove, while senior Kyle Caldwell led Hoffman with 11 kills, 4 aces, 5 assists and 8 digs.
“We played well, but we got caught in a couple of rough spots,” said Hawks coach Dan Hutton.
“I finally saw the team out there that played so well at the beginning of the season,” added Hutton, whose Hawks opened the MSL West campaign with 4 straight victories before falling on hard times. “We hit a funk and we couldn’t shake it, but tonight we put all that behind us and went out on a good note.”
Windholz juggled his lineup midway through the second game and received some important contributions from subs Prince Phillips and sophomore right side Brian Kelly, who recorded 5 blocks.
“I thought Brian really give us a spark,” said Windholz. “I wasn’t happy with our blocking and he came in and got the job done.”
The Grens trailed 6-2 in Game 3 before a teriffic effort by Kawa on service led a run that saw them take a 13-6 advantage.
Middle hitter Don Gardner closed out the match with his seventh kill of the night to put Elk Grove in the regional final against Bartlett at 7 p.m. today.
Hoffman sophomore Sean Habel was 8-for-8 on service with 2 aces while senior teammate Victor Lugo had 10 digs and classmate Franco Fumagalli added 4 blocks and 2 kills.
Setter Jeff Miceli had 28 assists for Elk Grove.
“We knew what we had to do tonight,” said Miceli. “We came out and pursued our goal and were able to finish.”