Naperville North takes revenge again
The Naperville North revenge tour continues.
Defeating a fourth playoff opponent they’d lost to during the regular season, the Huskies boys volleyball team on Friday dropped Oak Park in three games, 25-17, 23-25, 25-19, in the state quarterfinals at Hoffman Estates High School.
Enjoying an eight-match win streak, Naperville North (23-7) will play Vernon Hills (36-4) in the 10 a.m. Saturday semifinal, with either third-place or a state-title bid to follow.
The Huskies have no history this season with Vernon Hills, which buried Edwardsville in the other quarterfinal to win its 23rd straight match. After eliminating familiar higher seeds Downers Grove North, Downers South, Wheaton Warrenville South and now Oak Park, No. 1 at the St. Ignatius sectional, that may be an omen.
At this point, though, it’s all gravy.
“It’s just like we have nothing else to prove, besides to ourselves,” said Naperville North outside hitter Shane Witmer, who made 10 digs and had 16 kills including the final point, a left-to-right laser off setter Steve Massoni’s 39th assist.
“We weren’t expected to be here — besides us, we thought we’d be here,” the Ball State-bound Witmer said. “But no one expected us to get this far, so it’s almost like we’ve got nothing to lose, a good position.”
Good positioning was a big key to Naperville North’s success in its first state match since 2006.
Matt Jennings and Ryan Loughlin stood tall in the middle. Blocking the baselines were Witmer, Henry Cheatham and Spencer Sauter, the college prospect out with an injury in Oak Park’s April 1 three-game win over the Huskies.
That gave senior libero Danny Boryca good sightlines on his 17 digs. Massoni, Witmer, Sauter and John Gorey also each contributed a minimum of 5 digs.
“We had a good block set up on both outside and right-side,” said Boryca, whose sole kill came on a dig that deflected hard over the net and found a hole on Oak Park’s side. “Our goal was just try to take line and funnel as much as you can back to me and they did a real good job of that.”
“Their back-row defense is probably a little bit better than ours,” admitted Oak Park coach Don August, whose 27-13 Huskies got 11 kills from Brady Owen, 9 from Ben Wilks. “We took some really big swings and they just kept bringing the ball back, forced us to work hard.”
Naperville North came out “flat” in Game 1, coach Nathan Bornancin believed, despite an 8-point margin of victory. After Oak Park won Game 2 then took a 5-1 lead in Game 3, Bornancin called timeout.
The tactic worked. Naperville North pulled even at 8-8 and took control late, scoring on several Oak Park errors while making few itself.
“We were like, ‘Oh, boy, this is it.’ Either they go on or we do, this is it,” Bornancin said. “And the guys bounced back, just played a great third game.”