Stone, Choi help Vernon Hills clinch share of NSC title

When Vernon Hills played Stevenson on April 18 in the championship match of the Lake County Tournament, the Cougars were drilled 25-19, 25-9.

"It was such a lopsided affair," said Cougars coach Chris Curry. "It was hard to learn anything other than how bad we can be."

Vernon Hills found out how good it can be Thursday at home against Stevenson in a match that assured the Cougars of at least a share of the North Suburban Conference Lake Division title.

After a dreadful start, Vernon Hills made a stirring comeback in the first game. The Cougars scored the final 5 points of the opener for a 25-23 victory and took the second game 25-19.

The victory ran Vernon Hills' record to 24-4, 9-0 in league play. Stevenson dropped to 26-6, 7-1. The Cougars close out the conference season at home Wednesday against Mundelein. Stevenson has two league matches remaining.

Vernon Hills and Warren each went 8-1 last year, but the Cougars won the head-to-head meeting. The Cougars are the first NSC team since Lake Forest in 2002 to repeat as conference champions.

"We talk about wanting to be a program that is consistently in the conversation," Curry said.

The start of the match was all Stevenson. The Patriots raced to leads of 6-1 and 11-3. The only bright spot early for Vernon Hills was the play of junior Pat Stone (4 kills, 2 blocks).

"He's been a monster offensively, and his blocking is coming around to match," Curry said.

After 6 consecutive Vernon Hills points cut the deficit to 17-16, the Patriots strung together the next 3 points.

From there, Cougars senior Ernie Choi took over. He came through with 3 kills and 3 aces, and he notched service points on the final 5 points of the game.

"Ernie definitely pulled us through," senior Keegan Harris said.

Added Curry: "We haven't been setting Ernie a very good ball, and we finally got it to him. The guys recognized we should get the ball to Ernie."

Choi showed good variety on his kills.

"I blasted a few and tipped one in there," he said.

Down the stretch, Stevenson struggled mightily with its serve-receive and passing.

"The biggest thing was losing our momentum in Game 1," said Patriots coach Tim Crow. "We made some errors, and their momentum carried over to the second game."

Vernon Hills ripped off the first 6 points of the second game and never trailed. The closest Stevenson got was 17-13.

"We're not an aggressive enough serving team to get down 6 or 7n points early," Crow said. "(Credit) Vernon Hills. They made all the plays in the back and front row."

In retrospect, the start of the match almost went too well for Stevenson.

"We got a little cocky and it came back to bite us," senior Kyle Buck said.

Senior Brad Feiger (6 kills) and Buck (4 kills) paced Stevenson's attack.

For Vernon Hills, Choi led the way with 9 kills, and Harris contributed 6 kills. Sophomore Justin Opitz had 3 blocks.

Senior Quintin Anderson had 14 digs and Harris added 9 digs.

Anderson had started the season as an outside hitter but was quickly moved to libero.

"He's shown himself to be by far our most aggressive defender," Curry said. "He covers a lot of ground."