Boys volleyball: Maine South’s perfect day nets tourney title at Hersey
Saturday's Hersey boys volleyball Invite was a six-team round-robin format Saturday that saw its original schedule played out perfectly as Maine South and the host Huskies met in their final match of the day with the title at stake.
Each team had bested Fenton, Nazareth, Lake Forest, and Chicago Von Steuben to set up their final bout as a battle of 4-0 teams.
That battle turned out to be a dominant performance by Garrett Fecner's Hawks as they swept through the invite hosts 25-15, 25-16 at Ken Carter Gym to not only capture the team title but doing so in its fifth straight 2-0 sweep.
The perfect day improved their overall mark to 17-8 on the season.
"In a five-match tournament we had a goal of all right, let's win the next set and challenge and go," Fecner said.
"We had hiccups in a couple of matches, but you see that if we can play like that we cannot only play with but beat any team as long as we have fun and stay loose and just take it match by match."
In game one senior outside hitter Leo Trespeces-Winck got things going with a trio of kills that put the Hawks up 3-0. That sent them on their way to what became a 14-3 advantage as Hersey would get no closer than 18-12 on a Kieran Daly block. The Hawks went on a 7-3 tear to close out the set on a Lukas Babich kill off a Simon Zwierczyk feed.
Game two saw Maine South needing a finishing flourish from Trespeces-Winck, a Northern Kentucky recruit. He connected on back-to-back aces plus a kill that helped separate the Hawks from a 20-16 lead with a 5-0 run to clinch the match on a block from 6-2 senior middle Blocker Connor Judd.
Trespeces-Winck credited his teammates’ ability to stay fresh throughout the day as it successfully avoided the fatigue that teams more often than not experience in a multi-game, single-day tournament format.
"Yeah, these five-set tournaments are tough," Trespeces-Winck said. "A lot of work for your legs and arms. With our team depth we were able to go through it (and) have different (lineups) going and keep working it and then come in with fresh legs to be able to play at our best. Just play every single point and keep playing."
Trespeces-Winck led the victorious effort for the Hawks with 11 kills and 2 assists followed by Zwierczyk with 6 kills, 3 assists, 1 ace, and 1 block and Babich with 3 kills and 3 assists.
Senior OH Jack Stolzer, a Milwaukee School Of Engineering commit, paced Hersey with 10 kills followed by his fellow senior OH teammate Dylan Stubin's 3 kills and 2 assists as the Huskies fell to 16-10 overall.
Huskies coach Laura Gerber took a great deal of pride in her squad's runner-up finish.
"We came up a little short but (I'm) not disappointed in the least. I thought the boys did a great job — 4-1 is a really nice start to the playoff season and we really had some nice things that happened today," Gerber said. "We tried some different plays and we blocked really well out there (but) Maine South just has a really nice team and they overpowered us with their swinging and we just couldn't stop them."