Maine East gets best of West
Maine West staged a stirring rally against host Maine East in the second game of their Central Suburban North volleyball match in Park Ridge.
Unnfortunately for the Warriors, though, they couldn’t bottle any of the same magic in sets 1 and 3.
West came from 5 points down late in the second game to deadlock the match against their rivals, but ran out of luck down the stretch as the host Blue Demons prevailed 25-12, 23-25, 25-12.
The Warriors fell behind 15-1 in the first game and couldn’t recover, but a switch-up in Game 2 gave them a spark.
“We needed something,” said West senior hitter Robert Perez (team high 10 kills), “and coach (Randy) Tiller made a change in the lineup.”
Senior Pat Livingston, inserted in the game for set 2, made his presence felt immediately with a kill and ace, but the Warriors still trailed 21-16 with time running out.
“We needed Pat in the middle,” said Tiller, “and he was able to free up Robert (Perez) to get some good swings.”
Livingston helped lead the West rally and his block kill gave the Warriors game point and pushed the match to a third set.
“I was excited to get in there and play,” said Livingston. “I wanted to just go out and pound the ball.”
West’s Game 2 win was punctuated with a devastating spike by Perez, who played a spectacular match, right into the face of East defensive specialist Taku Hirunuma — ironically, an old friend of Perez as the two were teammates in middle school at Chippewa in Des Plaines.
“It looked worse than it actually was,” said Hirunuma. “It only hit me a glancing blow. You just go on to the next point, and anyway, it (the hard hit) didn’t count because we won.”
“It was like a reunion out there,” added the senior. “Robert and I are friends, but in a way (when we face each other on the court) we’re enemies.”
With a near-capacity crowd made up mostly of students trading cheers and barbs back and forth in a rowdy setting, the Warriors gained the momentum and an early lead in the deciding game as Perez hit two quick kills.
But the Blue Demons got hot at the right time, running off 7 straight points without a side out. Two aces apiece from Brian Vistman and Jon Coldea helped give the victory to the home team.
“It’s tough to come from behind,” said Perez. “Being down 15-1 is just ridiculous. The good thing was that we were able to come back in the second game and play our game. With Maine East being a sister school, you know every game in every sport is going to be very competitive.
“Next time we face them, we’ve got to bring the heat right away. You can’t just get 1 point or 2 points at a time — we’ve got to string the points together.”