Boys volleyball: Metea Valley rallies past West Chicago

Metea Valley had seen this before.

After winning Game 1 Thursday against visiting West Chicago, the Mustangs faltered late in Game 2 and promptly fell behind 18-12 in Game 3, forcing boys volleyball coach John Aister to burn his final timeout.

"We definitely have fallen apart at the end of games before," Aister said. "But in the huddle the guys took it upon themselves to challenge themselves. They knew their first contacts weren't very good and we couldn't get any offensive balls down because of it.

"It all started with our passing," the coach added. "Once we got our passing down, we were able to open up three options that we were able to exploit and put some balls down."

After the timeout Metea Valley (7-7) went on a 10-1 run that featured three consecutive putaways by 6-foot-5 senior Alex McKinney, then took advantage of three late kills by outside hitter Joe Berka to stun the Wildcats 25-19, 25-27, 25-22 in a nonconference match.

Berka led Metea Valley with 20 kills, and McKinney added 10 kills.

"Those two are our big guys," Aister said. "Those are the guys that we have to ride. We know that. Our team knows that. It's just a matter of mixing it up enough to keep the other team guessing, and we were able to do that well enough tonight where we were able to come back and take the match."

Metea Valley looked like it might make it an early evening for the visitors, grabbing a 12-8 lead in Game 2. But West Chicago countered with an 11-3 run behind 6-3 junior Ross Behr. The Mustangs fought off two set points before Behr's block at set point forced Game 3.

In the third set a dump kill by junior setter Lucas Kulesza and a Metea Valley error gave West Chicago its biggest lead of the night.

"It was a carryover from Game 2," Aister said about his team's early Game 3 deficit. "We were down after Game 2 and just let some things happen that shouldn't happen."

The loss marred an otherwise spectacular night from Behr, who led West Chicago (10-6) with 18 kills and 2 aces.

"I think our kids just have to walk out on the court with little more confidence right off the bat," West Chicago coach Kris Hasty said. "If we would've got our heads into that first set, maybe things would've been different. Who knows?

"But for us, that was probably one of our best matches," she added. "We showed we are a much better team tonight than we were last weekend. We capitalized on our strengths. We got the ball to Ross … a lot. But it works for us."

Anthony Arias added 6 kills and 2 aces for the Wildcats, who also got 24 assists and 3 aces from Kulesza.

"I'm not disappointed," Hasty said. "You'd like to come out on top, obviously. But I thought we played well for the most part."