Boys volleyball: Wheeling, Maine South to meet for regional title

Wheeling's Jan Baranowski and Jared Moser mashed up Prospect Tuesday in the semifinals of the St. Viator boiys volleyball regional in Arlington Heights. The duo combined for 22 kills as Wheeling knocked off Prospect for the third time this season 25-20, 25-16.

Wheeling (29-7) advanced to the regional finals for the first time since 2001. The Wildcats will play Maine South in the title match Wednesday at 6 p.m.

To get there, the Wildcats had to face a stout club from Prospect (17-20), which was not going to go away easily against their Mid-Suburban East rival, which they defeated twice during the regular season.

"Our division is hard," Wheeling coach Jason Kopkowski said. "It is hard to beat teams that many times in a season. There is a very high level of talent."

Baranowski and Moser made sure they weren't looking past Prospect.

"I am not going to lie, but the nerves definitely kicked in for this one," said Baranowski, who had 10 kills. "I feel like the whole team was confident, but we didn't want to be too overconfident. I knew we had to fight because this match really mattered."

Baranowski showed how much it mattered with his play in Game 1. The 6-foot-9 hitter had 6 kills, 2 of which came off blocks as Wheeling opened up a 20-13 advantage.

Prospect rallied behind the hitting and serving of Ben Miller (6 kills). The Knights were able to close to 21-20 before Wheeling rattled off the last 4 points. Moser and Baranowski had the final 2 kills to clinch the win.

"We got stuck a little here and there," Kopkowski said. "I think we have been through enough this season where we have learned a lot. They don't get too down and the don't get too up. They get the point and move on."

It was all Moser early in Game 2 for Wheeling. Moser had the Wildcats' first 4 points on kills to help Wheeling jump out to an 11-5 advantage.

"It was really fun," said Moser, who would finish the match with 12 kills and 2 aces. "We knew they always block cross. We knew we had to expose the line a couple of times. Once we exposed that, it really opened up the cross."

Prospect refused again to go away. Led by Owen Koury, Nathan Chung, Zach Cacini, Danny Weiler and Miller the Knights climbed back to 19-16.

Wheeling put the match away by scoring the final 6 points. George Tsogtbaatar had 3 aces during that stretch to go with a pair of kills by Baranowski and a kill by Moser.

"I thought overall our defense was pretty active," Kopkowski said. "Hopefully we can continue that."

Prospect coach Mike Riedy said his team came into the match ready to play.

"I think we prepared a lot better," Riedy said. "We came into this match with nothing to lose. We are the number 11 seed playing the number 6 seed. The worst that could happen was that we lost to a team that was better than us. We focused on al the positives. I think that helped them today."

Maine South d. Christian Heritage: Maine South had its hands full early against upstart and 19th-seeded Christian Heritage (20-11). Maine South (27-9), which is the third seed, trailed 14-11 in the opening game before rallying for a 25-18, 25-17 win.

"They came to play," Maine South coach Gary Granell said. "We had to make some adjustments. We were going up too early. We had to hold our block a little longer and we were able to do that."

Maine South was led by Jack Bolz, who had 10 kills, John Rzpniewski with 9 kills and Matt Herguth, who had 6 kills. Michael Cash has 24 assists for the Hawks.