WW South ends perfect season with seventh title
After receiving their championship medals, most of the staff, coaches and players from Wheaton Warrenville South went over to Adam Paikai to give him a handshake, a high-five, or a big hug.
One of them even presented him with his medal, placing the ribbon-adorned hardware around his neck.
Paikai, a WW South employee and Tigers superfan whom coach Bill Schreier calls “an inspiration to our team” hasn’t been able to attend as many matches recently as he’d like due to an ongoing illness that has confined him to a wheelchair.
But he was there at Hoffman Estates High School on Saturday, and he saw his adopted team put on a quite a show.
WW South completed an undefeated season by thumping Glenbrook North 25-21, 25-13 in the IHSA boys volleyball title match to win its seventh state championship and first since 2009.
How good were the Tigers this year?
Consider this: WW South dropped only two games all season long.
For the record that’s 42 matches and 84 of 86 games in the win column, folks.
The victory ended the Tigers title “drought”, if you can call that, and gave each member of the senior-laden team his first championship.
“Our team chemistry was just off the charts this year,” said senior outside hitter Thomas Jaeschke, who led the way with 12 kills.
“We were upset about the last two seasons, if you could call getting as far as we did disappointing,” middle Matt Nussbaum added.
The Tigers finished second in state in 2010 but failed to qualify for the Elite Eight last year.
“We used that as a driving force this year,” Nussbaum added.
Glenbrook North, with four losses this season that include three to WW South, came out quick and led through most of the first set.
But a late Tigers rally led by a couple of Matt Callaway block kills saw WW South grab Game 1 and take some fight out of the Spartans.
“We had the jitters early,” said WW South libero Dan Eastman, who had 9 digs, “but like coach always says, if you just do your best then you’re giving yourself your best shot to win.”
“Once we got rid of the nerves, we went out and played our game.”
Game 2 was all Tigers, and the celebration began in earnest when a final Spartans kill attempt went wide to end the match.
Tim Zyburt added 8 kills for a team that Schreier says is “in the conversation” for the best all-time at WW South.
“Everybody tries to compare these guys to some of our past teams, but I think in the future other teams will be comparing themselves to them,” Schreier said. “From one to 15, what they’ve done this year will stand on their own. They’ve set the standard and created their own legacy.”
And maybe just a tiny bit of the success was due to superfan Paikai, whom several Wheaton Warrenville South fans called “a great man.”
“After they got upset last year by Naperville North,” Paikai said, “I told them this year they should come out on a mission.”
Mission — and perfect season — accomplished.