Glenbard East sweeps through invitational
With all-tournament medals around their necks, Glenbard East standouts Matt Ploke and Tim Shenkin could stand tall after the Rams claimed Saturday’s Trojan Invite title at Downers Grove North.
But the players, along with boys volleyball coach Marci Maier, know it took a deep team effort to claim all five matches in one day, including a 25-17, 25-21 defeat of the host Trojans (22-3) in the championship match Saturday afternoon.
“Our bench did a great job coming in for us all day,” said Ploke, who had 8 kills and 6 digs in the title match. “This morning we may not have been firing on all cylinders, but this last match we definitely were.”
Glenbard East, which went 3-0 in its pool play before earning a spot in the finals by sweeping Metea Valley in the semis, led just 12-11 in the opener of the finals before a Ploke kill sparked a 7-2 run for a 19-13 lead en route to a 25-17 Rams win. Ploke also added a kill to close out the game.
But it was some big blocks early on from Shenkin and Joey Farrell that had Maier liking her team’s chances for a title at the eight-team tourney.
“I was very pleased that Joey Farrell and Shenkin came out with three, four blocks right off,” she said. “Who can not get excited about that? It got the bench pumped up and it got everyone pumped up.”
Downers Grove North was hurt by unforced errors and missed serves in Game 1, but not even a cleaner effort in the nightcap could slow the Rams. The Trojans did, however, draw even at 19 on a kill by senior Zack Parik and trailed just 22-21 before Glenbard East (25-4) closed out the game and the match.
“That was huge for us (errors),” Trojans assistant coch Erin Moore said. “In Game 1 we missed five serves and against a team like Glenbard East you can’t afford to miss that many serves.”
“Early on our bench did a nice job of coming in so that our starters were not playing all five matches,” Maier said. “That enabled them to be fresh and ready to go in that last match.”
Libero Matt Finder was clearly fresh as he darted all over the court while coming away with 20 digs, and teammate Mike Heim added 10 assists.
For the Trojans, 6-foot-7 JP Tulacka had 9 kills in the final and joined teammate Parik on the all-tourney squad.
“In Game 2 we fixed a lot of things and we were definitely in that game,” Moore said, but at the end of the day their outside attack tore us up.”
Metea Valley (19-9), meanwhile, went 3-2 and outlasted Payton 21-25, 25-20, 25-13 in the third-place match. Adam Miller and Martin Krasuski picked up all-tourney honors for the Mustangs, who went 2-1 in pool play including a three-game loss to the Trojans.
“We had prom last night and our legs are tired,” Mustangs coach John Aister said. “But I was hoping to come in here and finish top four. To take third and to take Downers Grove North to three (games) in pool play…this is a big step for our program.”