Boys volleyball: Vernon Hills passes up Barrington

It starts with a good pass.

A volleyball team can be oozing with elite-level hitters, monster hitters, as the Vernon Hills boys team is, but if the ball can't get to those hitters in an accurate and efficient way, then ... well, maybe Vernon Hills isn't 28-1 right now.

"Oh for sure," Vernon Hills coach Chris Curry said. "We work on passing way more than we work on hitting, because it's just that important."

Thanks to powerful, often unreturnable hitting that was set up by crisp, precision passing, Vernon Hills rolled to yet another big win on Friday night.

The Cougars, hosting their own quad tournament, took care of Barrington in straight sets, 25-19, 25-21 before also beating Lake Forest and Loyola.

Senior starting libero Jeff Altmark strung together one big pass after another and finished with 12 digs to set the offense in motion time after time for the Cougars.

"We work on (passing) so much in practice, and personally, I just harp on myself so much to get the team in system as much as we can because we want to be able to run all three options," Altmark said. "As long as I get the ball high enough to our setter, staying on my feet, getting the ball up with one hand, two hands, whatever. That's all that matters, getting the ball up to that setter because that gives us all three options."

Altmark, a libero for the last five years dating back to middle school, has earned the starting libero position by way of an ongoing competition that involves three other talented liberos.

It's the most top-level liberos the Cougars have had at one time on one of the deepest teams the programs has had overall as well.

"We've never had four liberos and they're all dying for competition," Curry said. "In practice yesterday, we had four guys just killing themselves, making great plays, but Jeff is winning that right now.

"The fact that we've had some injuries and some guys out has been nice because we've been able to get other guys in there. Other guys are getting a taste and that keeps the competition there all the time."

Curry says that there is a key to great passing that he imparts to all of his liberos, and everyone else on his team for that matter, every single day.

"It's all about moving your feet," said Curry, who also got 5 digs from Jack McDonald and 4 digs from Tony Mischiara. "Players can get very comfortable just reaching, especially when they're tired, or too comfortable. But that can be bad technique because as soon as you get off your centerline, it's hard to make the right angles and make a good pass. If you move your feet and trust yourself to get there, then everything is an easier pass. Moving your feet makes everything look easier."

With good passes, the Cougars made winning points look easy.

McDonald and Mischiara led the way with a team-high 6 kills a piece. Erik Giezychki had 5 kills and 6 assists and Kevin Schumacher had 14 assists.

Barrington never led in the first set, and led only four times in the second set as Vernon Hills continued to pull away.

The Cougars believe such a dominating performance over one of the better teams in the area bodes well for their state tournament hopes.

"This (season) has been so awesome, it's been like a dream come true," Mischiara said. "I think it's that we've been playing together for so long and practicing so hard and our end goal has always been that this is our season and we want to make it as far as we can and any team that comes in our way, we're going to run through them.

"We just can't wait to see what happens (in the state tournament). We have the potential to make it far at state and the goal is to win it."

Junior hitter Jack O'Riordan topped Barrington with 8 kills while senior hitter Luke Hartke added 5 kills and Caleb Rohlwing and Collin Fox each finished with 3 kills.