Boys volleyball: Focused Glenbard East stops York

There's a sense of familiarity between Brenden Cardott, the Glenbard East boys volleyball team and the York boys volleyball team.

The two schools being separated by roughly 5 miles helps build the acquaintance.

Playing twice in the last two weeks makes things tenser. Losing twice to the Dukes made things even spicier for Cardott and the Rams. Make it a win-or-go-home playoff game and the stakes were incredibly high.

"Oh, we wanted it really bad," Cardott said. "We know all their kids and this is so tempting."

Cardott and the Rams finally got their revenge. Glenbard East knocked off York 25-14, 25-20 to advance to Wednesday night's Lake Park regional title match against Lake Park.

"They always say it's hard to beat a team three times," Glenbard East coach Marci Maier said. "We were close at (the) Willowbrook (tournament) and we had prom that weekend. We definitely played better today than we did that weekend."

Throughout the day Tuesday, the Rams (20-16) we're focused on one thing: York.

"We were all talking about it as a team," junior Carson Brandt said. "We really wanted to beat them today."

York (20-15) and Glenbard East went back-and-forth early in the first set. But with the set tied at 6, Ethan Chael had a kill and an ace to give York an 8-6 lead. The teams exchanged points to make it 9-7.

That's when Glenbard East went on a run. The Rams scored the next 9 points to make it 16-9 and take control of the set.

"Nick O'Brien, he was serving short," Brandt said. "He was keeping them out of running their middles, so it kind of helped us out there."

Glenbard East scored 18 of the final 23 points of the set.

York, however, found its footing early on in the second set. A Glenbard East error, a Pat Resing block and a John Sopko kill off a Ryan Schaner assist gave York a 3-0 lead to start the second set.

"That has been our season," York coach Ken Dowdy said. "We have played out of our minds one day and then the next match we're lacking energy, execution."

But York could never build off that early salvo. The Rams tied the set at 3 and eventually took the lead 6-5 on a lift violation. The teams were tied eight times in the set, but York's last lead was at 5-4.

"We had a few errors," Dowdy said. "We just couldn't put a ball away today outside of our middles and our right side. We were looking for an answer on the outside and unfortunately, it wasn't there today."

That's just how the Rams had planned to grab a victory.

"We needed to use our middles more," Cardott said. "Once we used our middles it'll create more energy and shut them down."