Maine South ends Buffalo Grove's run

Buffalo Grove coach Matt Aiello had no trouble putting it all into perspective after a loss to undefeated Maine South in the boys volleyball state tournament put an end to the careers of a talented group of Bison seniors.

"It's tough," said Aiello, whose team has competed at the last three state volleyball tournaments, taking home hardware in 2008 and 2009. "You develop close bonds with these guys, and you're basically a family for three to four months.

"We talk all the time about volleyball, but also about more important things, like where they're going to school and what they plan to do with their lives. I'm not young anymore as far as coaching is concerned, but I'm still a young guy and I feel like these kids are brothers to me."

Six-foot-9 senior outside hitter Nick Baronti, one of the graduating seniors, led BG with 8 kills and 2 blocks, but the Bison proved no match for 40-0 Hawks, especially from the service line.

Classmate Mike Jambrone added 5 kills in his final match as BG fell 25-20, 25-15.

"They started both games with some real nice serves," said Aiello, "and our serving has been our Achilles heel all year. We missed a few more of those than we usually do, but we were hoping that all of our other strengths in different areas of the game would make up for that."

BG held an early 5-2 lead in Game 1 but consecutive kills by Matt Butch (5 kills) and several Bison errors helped the Hawks open up an insurmountable advantage midway through.

After a slow Game 2 start ,the Bison had a glimmer of hope when two consecutive kills from Baronti brought BG within 14-9.

But Hawks senior Eric Butch (match-high 9 kills) recorded a tremendous spike to quickly squelch the hopes for a Bison comeback, then two more block kills from Matt Butch helped Maine South win going away.

BG senior libero Alex Kob played an outstanding match trying to fend off the rocket jump serves of the Hawks, who finished with only 3 aces but kept the Bison (30-6) on their heels for most of the match.

"They got on a run," said Aiello, "and we weren't able to recover. At this stage of the season you can't really explain why that happens. But you have to give a lot of the credit to Maine South - they played significantly better defense than we thought they were capable of playing."

J.R. Dobrow, Nick Mau, and Tom McGovern are the other seniors on the BG roster, and were instrumental in a stellar run of success that saw the Bison boast a perfect 30-0 record in the Mid-Suburban League the last three years in addition to the state tourney success.

"Every year our goal is to win state,of course," said Baronti. "But we also have other goals such as winning the Bison Battle and conference. They're all steps along the way and we enjoy (our success) and take pride in it."

"The past three months have been the best time of my life," added Jambrone. "I'll be friends with these guys forever."