Boys volleyball: Naperville Central is good, but Glenbard West better
Glenbard West doesn't mind waiting a couple of weeks into the boys volleyball season to get an opponent's best.
That's just what Naperville Central gave the Hilltoppers on Tuesday in Naperville. The Redhawks pushed Glenbard West before falling 25-16, 25-23 in a nonconference match.
"So that's a really good team," said Hilltoppers coach Christine Giunta-Mayer, whose team played just its fourth match of the season. "That's what we wanted to see. That's the good stuff. That's what we want."
Playing its 13th match, Naperville Central (7-6) twice took early leads before the Hilltoppers (4-0) caught them from behind.
"The first set we went on a nice run there in the beginning, kind of the way we started the second set. We came out firing, and they made some errors early on," Redhawks coach Roger Strausberger said.
Their scouting report told the Hilltoppers to be aware of Redhawks junior outside hitter Carter Stenmark, and he lived up to the billing. Stenmark hit 9 kills and an ace.
"I thought Carter Stenmark played great tonight," Strausberger said. "I thought he had great swings even on off balls and that stuff. Hit really smart tonight. We're going to need that out of him the rest of the year. And we didn't make many dumb errors, which was good. We've struggled with that all season."
"We just had to hunker down and let our defense do the work for us," Hilltoppers senior setter Henry Curtis added. "That got us out of a lot of tough situations."
The Naperville Central defense also was up to the task, especially in the second set.
"That's a quality team," Giunta-Mayer said. "I knew they were good. We knew they had some great players on their team. We knew that they rally, rally, rally, rally on defense. And when you're a team that's used to sometimes your ball hitting the floor, it's hard to came back and keep going."
"We're going to live and die with our defense this year, just being scrappy and trying to frustrate the heck out of good teams," Strausberger added.
Glenbard West took the lead for good in the first set when Diego Guzman's block kill made the score 12-11. The Hilltoppers quickly pulled away from there.
"I think we're trying to find our stride a little bit," Curtis said. "The first set we came out a lot stronger than usual. We usually come out a little bit slower than that."
In the second set the Hilltoppers again took the lead for good at 12-11, this time on a Ryan Swartz kill. But the Redhawks hung tough, and Glenbard West never led by more than 3 points.
"I feel like we're definitely getting there," Swartz said. "Our passing and serve receive and defense is definitely killing it right now, and a lot of credit to Zack Morris, the libero, because we're just passing awesome right now. Once our offense comes together I think we'll be a really strong team."