Boys volleyball: Libertyville turns back Rolling Meadows

There was a red card, a yellow card, a reprimand to a boisterous crowd, and a hustling dive for an errant ball into said crowd.

There were leads, rallies, big serves and even bigger hits.

Yep, there was a little bit of everything in Tuesday's regional semifinal volleyball game between Rolling Meadows and host Libertyville.

Seventeenth seed Rolling Meadows also hit Libertyville, the top seed in the Palatine sectional, with everything it could handle. But the Wildcats withstood Rolling Meadows 25-16, 22-25, 25-21, as well as all the outside distractions to advance to today's regional championship against No. 8 Buffalo Grove.

"We knew it was going to get loud, we knew there would be crazy stuff going on in the stands, we knew that (Rolling Meadows) was going to come out with their best game," Libertyville junior hitter Brendan Cook said. "I think it helped a lot having experience. All of our starters are back from last year."

Libertyville used its vast experience to put together the best season in school history. The Wildcats are now 34-2 on the season, with regular season tournament losses to Barrington and New Trier as the only blemishes.

"We could definitely see this coming," Libertyville coach Jenny Smith said of the potential for this season. "But your first regional game is still definitely going to be nerves.

"I thought we did well with the nerves and everything else, the unusual reffing and all of that other stuff."

The Libertyville crowd was given a yellow card for taunting and a Rolling Meadows player was given a red card for using choice language.

But none of that took away from the spirited, competitive nature of the match.

Libertyville rolled in the first set with big kills from Cook (team-high 11 kills), Jack Stevens and Shane Feiereisel. But then Rolling Meadows dug deep.

The Mustangs had gotten swept decisively earlier in the season by Libertyville and weren't about to let that happen again. Rolling Meadows did a much better job of challenging Libertyville's big hitters and got some big kills on its side by Logan Reese, who finished with a total of 17 kills.

"We definitely played better tonight than the first time we played (Libertyville)," Reese said. "I felt better about it. We definitely improved since then. We learned to be mentally tough. That was our best volleyball of the season tonight. It was just a fun environment to play in. Even their fans got us fired up."

The third set was just as intense and even though Rolling Meadows was chasing Libertyville most of the way, it wasn't by much, 3 to 4 points.

"It was a battle until the end," said Rolling Meadows coach Kevin Bourn, whose team finishes with a 20-17 record. "We've got eight seniors and they kind of took it upon themselves to play with so much passion at the end of the season. We didn't have that earlier in the season and not giving up and picking each other up is what you need at this time (of the season). We came up a little short but it was a fun match."

Kyle Kornblum added 7 kills for Rolling Meadows, which also got 18 digs from Marc Quezada and balanced play-making from setters Joey Tunzi (15 assists) and Billy Psarros (13 assists).

For Libertyville, Stevens had 9 kills, Feiereisel and Drew Fortini had 5 kills apiece. Setter Ryan Hirschel had 31 assists and Sam Kharasch had 16 digs.

"Rolling Meadows played really, really well tonight and we weren't as much on our game," Cook said. "We had to just give everything we could with energy and just barely came out with it. We're going to have to pick up our game for tomorrow (against Buffalo Grove) and for the rest of the playoffs if we want to keep playing."