Glenbard West claims milestone victory for its coach
It may be too early to tell just how good this year's Glenbard West team is, but it's already clear that the volleyball program is on solid ground again this spring.
The Hilltoppers entered the middle of this week with just two matches under their belts, but they swept Naperville Central 25-18, 25-18 Thursday night in Naperville, one night after knocking off 2016 state quarterfinalist Lincoln-Way East. The back-to-back wins got coach Christine Giunta-Mayer to the 300-win mark.
While a trio of stars departed after a second straight state title last spring, 12 seniors are back and the 4-0 squad enters this weekend's test at the Glenbard East tournament with the same expectations as always - to keep on winning.
"My junior year was for stepping up and becoming a middle," explained 6-foot-4 Matthew Scruggs, who had 3 kills against the Redhawks. "I went under Will Church's wing and he taught me a lot. This year, stepping up as a captain, we're just trying to teach the culture to the team and find our rhythm. That's what we're trying to do right now because we've only played four games. It's early for us. So we're just trying to find our culture, find our rhythm and then we'll start rolling."
While Glenbard West may not have been at the very top of its game, the visitors flashed a balanced group of attackers, strong defense in the back and another strong passing effort from senior setter Sean Farmer, who finished with 17 assists.
"It was pretty clean and then when we did make our mistakes we knew that we were there for each other and we trusted we could get the job done," Scruggs said. "We can spread the floor and go to pretty much anybody. It's nice to have that and it's nice to know that Farmer knows what he's doing. That really helps."
The Hilltoppers broke from an early 3-3 tie in the first game to take 14-6 lead. Ryan Diver and Farmer each recorded aces during the stretch and Robbie Murphy had a block kill, but the 7-6 Redhawks didn't help themselves by committing too many unforced errors. Naperville Central missed seven serves in the opener and that proved to be the margin in the 25-18 setback.
"That was really it. Our unforced errors killed us and you can't do that against good teams," Redhawks coach Roger Strausberger said. "We're inconsistent right now. For every good thing we do it seems we do three or four bad things. We need to clean it up and I think we're a better team than that."
Game 2 was similar as the defending state champs jumped out to a 13-5 lead following a powerful kill by Scruggs, but then had a shaky patch and the home team trailed just 23-17 after a big swing from Kyle Ramey, who had 6 kills in the match.
"It's a good win. I don't think they're very happy with how they played tonight so I'm happy with that," Giunta-Mayer said. "They know there's a lot of things that they can do better. We made way too many errors and that's not really our style. I think they're glad they got the win but they know they can be better."
Cameron Lilly led Glenbard West with 5 kills, while libero Zach Norvid had 6 digs. John Davis paced the Redhawks with 7 kills and Timothy Folliard had 17 assists and 7 digs.
"We're feeling pretty good," said Murphy, a 6-4 outside hitter for the Hilltoppers. "We have the big tournament this weekend so we're trying to build with every game, look for our weaknesses and improve on those in practices."