Boys volleyball: Hersey takes title at St. Charles East
After dominating the first set 25-8, host school St. Charles East appeared to have a lock on the fifth place trophy in its volleyball invitational Saturday. But Geneva had other ideas.
After shuffling the lineup, the Vikings came out with renewed energy for a more competitive second set. Geneva tied the contest for the 10th time, 16-16 on a John Mooney tip kill. The Saints then refocused to pull away for a 25-21 win to take the match and fifth place honors.
Hersey finished the day with a perfect record, winning the first place match and all of its pool play contests in two sets. The Huskies, top team in the Black Pool, beat Orange Pool winner Plainfield South, 25-22, 25-19 in the title contest.
"We are kind of getting into our rhythm," said Hersey coach Laura Gerber. "This was a huge help to have five matches and I thought they did a really nice job. It took us a little while to get our blocks set and once we did we were slowing it down and our defense really picked up. Our serve-receive was fantastic so that we could run our offense."
Tim Nugent led the Huskies' offense in the title bout with 8 kills while teammate Brent Gurvis notched 6. Libero Lucas Irwin made 12 digs.
West Chicago, which finished second in the Black Pool, downed Fenton, the Orange second place team, in two sets, 25-15, 25-18, to take home the third place trophy.
"We played this team before at the beginning of the season so we knew what we were up against," said West Chicago coach Regina Pauli. "It's been a long day but I think the boys pushed through, worked together and found some energy."
Both teams finished second in pool play.
Caleb Kulesza led the Wildcats' effort in the game with 8 kills and 3 blocks. Teammate Mike Wagner notched 6 kills and 8 digs.
St. Charles East went 3-2 on the day and Geneva 2-3.
"The first set was a little rough, we were struggling to put some balls down and then the second set, our coach switched up our lineup and I guess that kind of lit a fire under a couple of us," said Geneva's Will Johnson, who led the Vikings with 10 kills in the game.
"We played a lot of volleyball today and I think that it was hard to keep the intensity," St. Charles East coach Kate McCullagh said. "I think we know what we had to do and we did it. We finished the game the way we wanted to. It just wasn't as clean as we wanted it to be, but we are happy with the outcome."
"I think we just lost focus for a minute. We were kind of disappointed in how we finished in pool play. We had a great start to the year and I think we lost some of that," said Colin Hanley of the Saints. "So coming out and being dominate as we were against Geneva in the first set, we lost focus going into the second set so I think we took a little bit off our game but we were able to rally at the end."
Hanley made four of his 24 tournament kills in the fifth place match.
The Saints won their first two matches in Orange Pool play, beating Huntley and Oswego. St. Charles East then dropped the last two to Hersey and West Chicago to finish third.
The Vikings dropped a three set decision to Plainfield to open play in the Black Pool. After taking Elgin and Oak Lawn in two sets, Geneva lost its final pool match to West Chicago to also finish third.