Wheaton Warrenville South defeats Waubonsie Valley
Sometimes a good team just needs a reminder to get back into its game.
After winning the first game, Wheaton Warrenville South was down 13-7 in Game 2 to Waubonsie Valley on Friday when Tigers coach Bill Schreier called a timeout to remind his team to just relax and make fewer errors. They had made 8 errors in the set to that point.
It worked.
The three-time defending state champion and host Tigers overtook the Warriors at 16-15 on a scoring block by Mike Waldron and went on for a 25-21, 25-23 sweep to win the first match of pool play in the Tiger Classic.
The Tigers (6-2) went on to defeat Evanston 25-11, 25-16 to move into Saturday's championship division, while the Warriors (5-4) lost in three sets to Evanston 25-23, 17-25, 25-22 and will start Saturday's play in the Bronze Division.
"We were missing serves, making attacking, passing and ball-control errors," Schreier said. "We needed to clean things up on our side of the net. And we did. We outscored them 18-10 from that point forward, which I think is big."
He credited Waubonsie Valley for battling back to make it closer at the end.
WW South outside hitter Eric Luhrsen praised the Warriors for their strong defense, which saw the teams also battle evenly to the 16th point in the first game.
"They were playing real good defense and blocking real well," Luhrsen said. "They were hustling. Every team is going to give us their best shot as Waubonsie Valley did tonight. We're used to that. It's harder now, but it will benefit us in the long run."
Matt Wilkins led the Tigers with 11 kills and Bodie Ebergeny chipped in 7 kills and 3 blocks. Eric Wilkins had 26 assists and Dave Priest led the team in digs with 6.
Russell Penicook of Waubonsie Valley put down a match-high 13 kills and John Ghassan added 10. Josh James had 7 blocks and Robert Wieland had 6.
"We have the tallest team we've ever had," said Waubonsie Valley coach Al Lagger. "Blocking is one of our strong points and we work on it in practice ever day."
Lagger thought mental mistakes by his team down the stretch of the second set allowed the match to slip away.
"We let them go on three-point runs in each game," Lagger said. "But they did a nice job of moving their kids around. We're practicing every day to get to that level. I'm very pleased with the way we played."