Without Lei, Naperville Central struggles
Naperville Central’s boys volleyball team lacks a key component.
Senior setter Albert Lei sprained an ankle a week ago at the Hoffman Estates Hawk Invite. Down the road his absence could actually strengthen the Redhawks, but on Friday Glenbrook North targeted the middle to win the two games of pool play at Wheaton Warrenville South’s Tiger Classic.
“It’s hard for someone to step into those shoes, a senior leader of that capacity,” Naperville Central coach Jeff Danbom said after falling 25-14, 25-15. Redhawks setter Dan Trembacki, at 5-foot-9 some 7 inches shorter than Lei, recorded 20 assists. Outside hitter Jon Chiczewski was credited with 4 kills and middle blocker John Cinzio had 3. Libero Lucas Parker dug 4 balls.
“The guys are trying to develop who they want to look to, who they feel comfortable with. It’s more of a team effort now. We’re searching for that right now,” Danbom said.
Glenbrook North (5-1) worked the powerful offensive combination of setter Kyle Bedford to brother Patrick Bedford or Brian O’Keefe to finish with 31 assists good for 15 kills by Patrick Bedford, 12 for O’Keefe.
“They ran a really fast-paced offense, so our blockers sort of struggled to keep up with them,” said Chiczewski, who noted that a main reason for the loss was simply the Spartans are a “great team.”
“They were just bouncing balls on us and we couldn’t really play any defense on it. So it really came down to our frontcourt defense. We just really couldn’t keep up,” Chiczewski said.
Naperville Central (4-3) held within 11-10 in the first game when the green-clad Spartans reeled off a game-winning 14-4 run, right-side Jakub Barabas’ knuckler serve controlling 5 straight points in one span.
“I think it was in that time our blocking broke down significantly,” said Danbom, who called two timeouts to try to restore order. “We were giving up a lot of free crosscourt shots, and that was just an absence of identifying our hitters.”
“We’re a little bit bigger on the outside attacks than they could put up as a block,” said Glenbrook North coach Chris Cooper. “Our ball control was a little bit better than theirs, I think, so that allowed us to run more stuff. But again, when they lost their starting setter, I have no idea how good Naperville Central really is without that kid.”
Of its grit there was little doubt. Glenbrook North took a quick 9-3 lead in Game 2, but Trembacki capped a 7-5 Redhawks run with 3 blocks on one point to earn a standing ovation from Naperville Central fans.
The buck stopped there. Spartans outside Patrick Bedford sparked a closing 11-5 run with right-hand hammers on 6 kills in the run, 3 while brother Kyle held serve.
“I think we should be fine,” Trembacki said. “He’s (Lei) only out for a couple weeks and we’ve got all our weapons. So we should just need to keep working hard and not let it affect us and just realize that we can still win without him.”