Surging Prospect tops Wheeling in two
The Prospect boys volleyball team began the season dropping its first five matches at the Vernon Hills tournament.
Despite the slow start, coach Mike Riedy was excited about that performance.
"I thought we played great against some tough competition like Loyola and Vernon Hills," Riedy said. "We lost some close games that we were just a little shy of winning."
Now, with more than half the season under their belt, the Knights' play, and record, is spiking in the other direction.
Prospect improved to 12-11 and 4-2 in the Mid-Suburban East on Tuesday with a dominant 25-9, 25-9 win at Wheeling.
"We've got a lot of weapons not only at the pins but also in the middle," said Knights senior Alex Blethen. "We have a lot of presence at the net, and if one of us gets hot, or if we all get hot at the same time, we're tough to beat."
The Wildcats fell to 0-6 in conference.
"We didn't come out and compete," said Wheeling setter Kyle Bagarella. "We weren't on our game.
"We've been playing fairly well lately, but we can't come out and make as many unforced errors as we did tonight. We've got to learn from our mistakes."
Prospect started the second half of the MSL season in fine style, running out to a 16-5 set one lead at Wheeling.
Setter Kyle Gerber set up Eryk Krzyzak, Dan Schweinzger and Matt Bohnen for kills.
Gerber got a block kill of his own and Bohnen served up an ace.
The Knights closed out the first set on Schweinzger's slam.
"We started the season slow at Vernon Hills," Gerber said. "But ever since then we've gotten on the winning track and started to play real volleyball."
Gerber's dump kill led Prospect to a 10-3 set two advantage but Wheeling made a nice run behind the service of Michael Lechowicz. His 4 straight points, including one on an athletic block kill shared by Alex Rybak and Lechowicz, saw the Wildcats close to 13-7.
It was all Prospect after that and the visitors put the match away on a Gerber ace.
"We're on an uphill swing, that's for sure," Riedy said. "We had a great tournament at Warren recently and a good one at Palatine. We're starting to put it all together."
Junior Liam Benson led Prospect on defense with 12 digs. Krzyzak had 6 kills while Bohnen added 3 aces. Gerber excelled with 15 assists.
"We have high expectations for the rest of the season," Blethen said. "The MSL East is one of the best divisions in the state so what we
want to do is win out and see what happens.
"We're also looking forward to the playoffs where we expect to do well."
Hersey d. Buffalo Grove: The host Huskies dealt the Bison their first setback in MSL East play 25-23, 25-27, 25-20.
Bart Migus (15 kills) and Angelo Coniglio (11) had big hitting efforts for Hersey, which moved into a second-place tie in the East at 4-2 with Elk Grove and Prospect.
Migus also had a team-best 14 digs and 3 blocks, and Peter Wesolowski generated 21 assists as Hersey improved to 11-3 overall.
Buffalo Grove (19-4, 5-1) was led on attack by Athan Cruz (9 kills), Kevin Shanahan (7), Alex Franz (5) and Alex Pietras (4), and Brendan Ward contributed 3 blocks.
Barrington d. Fremd: Noah Ricchetti had 24 setting assists as Ethan Carroll (9 kills), Justin Glader (7) and Adam Glader led the attack for the MSL West leaders in a 25-18, 26-24 victory over the Vikings.
Carroll also had a team-best 9 digs for the Broncos.
Ben Zimmerman and Kevin Wade led Fremd (10-12, 3-3) with 6 kills apiece. Wade also had a team-best 3 blocks, Patrick Kurka had 11 digs and Eduardo Amador had 10 assists.
Elk Grove d. Rolling Meadows: Kevin Braceros (6 kills) and Geoffrey Dybicz (4) led the attack as Ray Kraus provided 16 assists on 35-for-35 setting in a 25-14, 25-16 victory over the Mustangs.
Anthony Prochenski and Kevin Wickstrom both had 6 digs for the Grenadiers (14-4, 4-2).
Top performers for Meadows included Enrique Avellaneda (41-43 setting, 9 assists) and Marc Quezada (6 digs).
Schaumburg d. Hoffman Estates: Bozhdar Kolev had a team-best 8 kills and Erick Kirschbaum and Kevin McGinn had 4 apiece to help the visiting Saxons (16-11, 3-3) in a 25-19, 25-18 decision.
Rafal Ogorek had 5 digs and Nidhin Thomas had 18 assist for Schaumburg.
Senior Matt Stacy led Hoffman Estates in kills (4), and Hardik Patel had a team-best 18 assists.
Palatine d. Conant: Tyler Kendzior paced the Pirates with 10 kills and Zack Wheat and Ryan Campbell had 6 each in a 25-18, 25-19 outcome.
Jake Boldog contributed a team-best 14 assists for Palatine and also went 6-for-6 serving with 2 aces.
J.T. Levitt came up with 12 digs for Conant, while Chris Wegenek and Tim Breiter (2 kills each) led the attack and Nate Armando provided 7 assists.