Boys volleyball: St. Charles North rallies past Geneva in 3

With the St. Charles North boys volleyball team trailing 16-14 late in Game 3 of its match at Geneva on Tuesday there was no time for just a general plan.

It was time to get down to specifics. The attention to details paid off for the North Stars as they rallied to pull out a 25-17, 17-25, 25-19 win in DuKane Conference action.

"Sometimes if the message is too broad it loses meaning with the kids," North coach Todd Weimer said. "When we took a timeout at that point I wanted to make sure each player was going back out on the floor focused on a specific assignment. If you chase too many rabbits at the same time you wind up catching none at all. But if you just focus on chasing one you have a better chance."

North Star senior Benjamin Woytych, who had a match-high 14 kills, started the late rally with a thunderous spike. The Vikings then committed 3 costly unforced errors to give the North Stars the lead. Marcus Janssen followed with a kill before sophomore Kyle Spence closed out the North Stars' 8-0 run with 3 straight kills to extend the lead to 22-16. Anthony Gillio served for 7 points.

"It was a total team effort," Woytych said. "Everybody got it really cranked up there at the end. Gillio was making some nice serves. We were executing some nice passes. Kyle Pence the sophomore had some big hits. We just put the pedal to the medal until the pedal broke."

The North Stars (6-8, 1-1) led Game 1 from start to finish only to have the Vikings come back and return the favor in the same fashion in Game 2. However, one thing that stayed consistent for the North Stars was their defense as they recorded 53 team digs. Cameron Menini led the defensive effort with 17 digs. Ryan Forester added 10 digs. Setter Kyle Gruber had 22 assists and 7 digs.

"Our defense was really good tonight," Weimer said. "We were able to get to the first ball and dig some of their best shots. That can take the life right out of the other team and really get them frustrated."

Ben McCurley added 6 kills for the North Stars. Spence and Janssen each added 4 kills.

Reilly Waldoch led Geneva (8-11, 0-2) with 7 kills. Breandan Kispert had 6 kills. Geneva setter Joey Costa finished with 16 assists.

"I really like the way we responded in the second game after getting beat pretty good in the first one," Geneva coach Stephanie Rasmussen said. "A lot of times we get down after a loss like that but tonight we were able to come back and that's a good sign. In the third game when they went on their run we just got stuck in a rotation where we couldn't get a ball down. We tried calling a timeout and making four substitutions but we couldn't get it turned around."