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Naperville North wins regional, city bragging rights

Naperville North won Naperville boys volleyball bragging rights on Wednesday.

The sixth-seeded Huskies, displaying solid defense and a diverse offense, knocked off cross-town rival and No. 4-seeded Naperville Central 25-23, 28-26 to win the Naperville North regional championship.

The Huskies won two of the three meetings between the two teams.

"Our defense took a huge step tonight," said Naperville North coach Nate Bornancin. "Our serve-receive was amazing and we were able to spread the ball around. It's really a team effort when we're attacking from everywhere."

"We were able to block really well," said Huskies libero Phil Olszewski, who led the team with 12 digs. "Our blockers did a great job going up in the right places, so our back-row defense was able to adjust to the block."

The evening didn't start so well for the Huskies (23-14) who fell behind 19-13 in Game 1.

However, they made up the ground thanks to a series of Naperville Central errors combined with big kills by the Huskies' Michael Jennings and Jack Lenert and a service ace by Casey Hiller.

Late kills by Kent Lang, Spencer Munroe and Frank Dore secured the first-game win.

"We had them in Set 1," said Naperville Central coach Roger Strausburger. "We had total control and we tanked. We made a ton of errors. Their defense was scrappy and we weren't able to get balls up."

In Game 2 the Redhawks (30-11) were leading 13-12, when the Huskies went on a 5-point run to give them separation at 17-13.

Again the points came from a variety of people. Jennings had two kills and Dore and Hiller each had one in that sequence.

But the Redhawks still had some fight in them and tied at 18-18 on a pair of kills by Kacper Mazurek and an ace by Jack Burton.

The two teams kept it close the rest of the way until a trio of Redhawks errors led to the Huskies being able to close out the match.

"I think we played with a lot of heart tonight," Jennings said. "That's what won it for us because the two teams are evenly matched skill-wise."

Jennings led the Huskies with 9 kills, Munroe had 6 and Lang had 4. Jack Rothmund had 13 assists and Dan Hill had 9.

"It all starts for us with setters Rothmund and Hill and their ability to bring everyone into the offense," Bornancin said. "And Olszewski does a great job of commanding the back line. His digs make sure that we're able to run a lot of stuff. We looked tentative at first, but these guys are used to playing in tough matches because of the challenging schedule we played this year."

Burton and Mazurek had 8 kills each for the Redhawks, and Kevin Prazak had 21 assists.

"We only blocked three balls and only dug 13," Strausburger said. "You're not going to get anywhere in the state tournament with those numbers. We just didn't perform tonight. All year it's been up and down like this."

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