Boys volleyball: Libertyville starts season in impressive fashion vs. Hersey
It was a great start to the 2025 boys volleyball season for Libertyville when it hosted Hersey Tuesday night in a nonconference match.
The Wildcats were pretty dominant in all aspects of their game as they posted an impressive 25-14 win in the first set before capturing a 25-19 victory in the second set to take the match two sets none.
Hersey (1-1) had all sorts of weapons on the other side of the net to contend with. Two kills and a block by senior Justin Howell (6 kills, 2 blocks) helped stake Libertyville (1-0) to a 13-7 lead in the first set as Jordan Coughlin (5 kills, 5 blocks) rolled off 4 service points.
Coughlin really came alive on the attack late in the first set as his third kill in a short stretch made the score 23-12 before his block sealed the 25-14 victory.
“Our game plan was just to focus on our side, control our errors, and also we focused on hitting down the line because we noticed their defense down there wasn’t too good,” said junior Lukas Slesers, who had 7 kills and 2 blocks. “Our passing was pretty good so we just kept running our middles. And our 6-foot-9 guy (junior Nate Knight) played great.”
Senior setter Aarav Bamrolia (11 assists, 5 blocks) also had a big game for the Wildcats while Knight added 6 blocks and 3 kills.
In the second set, Libertyville built a 22-13 lead on a kill by senior Alex Brown. The Huskies put together a late rally to keep their hopes alive as 2 service points by Dylan Stukin cut the lead to 23-18. But a kill by Slesers, and another kill by Howell on match point put the game away for the Wildcats.
“Libertyville is always a super strong program. Jen (Smith) does a really nice job of course, and they’ve got some talent,” said Hersey coach Laura Gerber, whose team beat Hoffman Estates in their first match. “These guys (Libertyville) are a little bit older, they’ve played together a bit, and we’re young and still trying to figure it out. We could not get our offense going, and if you can’t pass you can’t run an offense, but we’ll get there.”
Hersey held an early lead in the second set, but it could not maintain the momentum as 4 service points by Howell staked the Wildcats to a 9-4 lead.
“We are returning a lot of guys from last year, and they’re playing with a lot of confidence for the first game of the year,” said Libertyville coach Jenny Smith.
“Aarav our setter is doing a great job balancing the offense, it’s pretty easy with the personnel that we have. And I think our blocking was good, we covered really well, and we didn’t let the ball drop on our side at all so our defense did a really good job.