Boys volleyball: Jiang's return jump-starts Warren against Carmel

Talk about your storybook endings.

It didn't seem much at the time, but Warren middle hitter Alex Jiang limped gingerly to the sidelines during the third set of Tuesday night's regional semifinal against Carmel. No matter, the Warren lead had stretched to 20-15.

"Some guy hit him in the shin," Warren outside hitter Mihajlo Gomez said. "But Carmel was coming back at us."

That much was true. On a block kill from Ben Burkhalter, the Warren lead had slipped to 23-22.

Enter Jiang. He was given one play and he delivered a key kill to stall the Carmel rally. Gomez ended Carmel's season with a serving ace.

Warren (23-14) won 26-28, 25-20, 25-22 and will play Hersey (30-5) in the regional championship match at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Carmel trailed 12-9 in the opening set but rallied with Shawn Novak on the serving line. He had help from blocks from Mike Scott and Burkhalter, and Carmel had reclaimed the lead. On back-to-back kills from Brett Bauer, the Warren lead was 23-21. Consecutive kills from Kerrick Podgorski gave Carmel the first set.

"We knew Warren was really good," Carmel coach Kevin Nylen said. "We were making errors and having net violations. You have to earn your points."

On one of those Carmel net violations, the Warren lead was 10-9 in the second set. However, on kills from Bauer and Gomez, Warren had some breathing room at 13-10.

"We finally started to click," Gomez said. "Every games, we seem to get better."

"Both teams played a very good match," Warren coach Yun Chen said "We, too, needed to cut down on our errors. But we have been playing better volleyball lately."

Carmel (20-9) had a surprising 14 kills from Podgorski. Jackson Ta-Chin-Ski added 5 kills. Scott checked in with 4 kills. Setter Jack Herron notched 28 assists, and libero Sean Wittmann had 12 digs.

Kyle Wells led a balanced Warren attack with 6 kills. Bauer added five. Setter Gavin Glickley dished out 16 assists.