Boys volleyball: Fremd rallies to down Rolling Meadows for tourney title

One of the final games in the Rolling Meadows boys volleyball round-robin invitational Saturday had the potential to be a very interesting contest.

It pitted the host Mustangs against Fremd and sure enough, right on cue, the two teams made it even more compelling with each team winning its first four games of the day.

That set the Vikings-Meadows tilt up as the championship match, and Fremd coach Curt Pinley said there were two specific items his team had to focus on in the tournament.

"One of the biggest things we talked about coming into today was limiting errors and playing with confidence," said Pinley, "and we knew those were two things we had to figure out early in the season.

"Meadows is a fantastic team and finishing up with them after we had already played four matches, well, to play at the level we did in the last match of the day, I think it says a lot of the kind of guys we have this year."

And with the title on the line the two teams, fatigued as they had been from a long day of volleyball, put on quite a show.

Fremd got the upper hand early on, then rallied in the second set for a 25-17, 25-21 championship win.

"I always tell the guys the first match of a tourney is the second toughest match, and the last one is the toughest," said Mustangs coach Kevin Bourn. "Either way, you're tired because you just woke up, or you're tired from playing non-stop all day.

"Our setters have basically been doing sprinting workouts the entire day and we did a good job holding it together until the end. I felt like we played tough against a great Fremd team."

Fremd finished 5-0 on the day, not dropping even one set, while Meadows was 4-1.

Bartlett took third place with a 3-2 record, losing a heartbreaker to Fremd, 27-29 in set two.

Spencer Medendorp, a right side, led the Hawks on the day with 31 kills, 20 digs, and 3 aces. Teammates Jack Morrisey (25 kills, 27 digs), Aaron Amawan (43 digs, 6 aces), Anthony Mapes (23 kills, 21 digs) and Adarsh Patel (80 assists) also excelled.

"Against Fremd, we had multiple chances to put them away," said Bartlett coach Robert Schwantz. "We just made too many errors."

In what turned out to be the winner-take-all game, Fremd started strong to take set one.

Then Meadows rebounded to take a 14-11 advantage in the second set.

A kill from Vikings junior outside hitter Camden Seaver started the Fremd rally, and the teams traded points until senior Marco Boscolo set up classmate Luke Polcyn, an outside hitter, for a slam that made it 20-19 Vikes.

Fremd extended the lead to 24-21 when senior Aaron Sallade had a kill off the block, then a Meadows hit past the end line put the match in the win column for the Vikings.

Boscolo finished with 96 assists on the day for Fremd, Chris Kim had 29 digs and was 52-of-53 on serve receive, and Seaver led the way on attack with 51 kills.

And despite the final match loss, Bourn was upbeat about his squad's performance on the day, especially three players who got their initial varsity playing time.

"They took the court for varsity for the first time ever in their careers, and they all did great," said Bourn. "Stevie Psarros, one of our setters, was just back from a knee injury, Rayko Wojciekowski got some playing time in the back row and got some nice serves in and some front row hitting as well. And Aidan Moran, a defensive specialist, got in for the first time and also did a nice job."