Boys volleyball: Glenbard West digs another Silver crown
Was it Johnny Winkler's booming jump-serve? Or maybe the powerful arms of outside hitters Cameron Lilly and Robbie Murphy? Perhaps it was the spot-on setting of Sean Farmer?
Those factors all contributed. But it was more than just offense for Glenbard West Thursday at Downers Grove North.
The Hilltoppers completed their fourth consecutive perfect loop through the West Suburban Silver, defeating the Trojans 25-21, 25-17 behind their blocking, digging and all-around hustle.
"The second line defense has been a big focus of ours," said Glenbard West coach Christine Giunta-Mayer. "If we get a touch on anything and we can put the ball back up, we can usually score out of system. I'm pretty impressed with our defense.
"I'm not impressed with our errors, but our defense probably saved us this game."
Glenbard West (33-1, 6-0) needed every defensive edge in the first game against Downers North, which used a 5-0 run to take a 19-18 lead and force a timeout.
"We've probably been focusing on that (defense) more than anything else right now," Giunta-Mayer said. "We're doing this thing, 'Find the points. Find the points. Find the inches. Where are the inches?' We've been really practicing that really hard. We're treating every ball like it's our last ball. I saw that today. Definitely saw those second chances today, which we needed."
The Hilltoppers, aided by two hitting errors by the Trojans, closed Game 1 on a 7-2 run with two kills from Murphy, an ace by Farmer and a putaway by Matthew Scruggs.
Game 2 was all Glenbard West, which opened a 14-7 lead and never looked back.
Libero Zach Norvid led the Hilltoppers' defense with 11 digs and added 2 of the visitors' 5 aces.
"The blocks did a really good job," Norvid said. "That makes it really easy on us to be in the right spot. We were also serving well and getting them out of system, which gives our blocking an opportunity to get to an even better spot. Coach always puts an emphasis on finding points, and that's what we did."
Farmer had 20 assists, 9 digs and 3 kills, Lilly added 10 kills, an ace and a block, Murphy contributed 6 kills and an ace, and Scruggs chipped in 5 kills for Glenbard West.
Michael Price led Downers North (27-7, 4-2) with 5 kills, Owen Walgren added 3 kills and a block, and Michael LeGros contributed 15 assists and a kill.
"Instead of pushing to 20 in that first game, we had two straight errors and against a good team like that, more than likely you're done," said Downers North coach Mark Wasik. "That's the level they force you to play at, and we didn't do that.
"In the second game we played at a minus-15 in terms of just errors, errors, errors," he added. "I said halfway through that game that Glenbard West is going to walk out of here saying, 'Thanks, Downers North.' Glenbard West forced us to handle the ball it and we didn't handle it well."
"There's a lot to learn from this match," Wasik said. "That's a positive."