Healthy again, Glenbard East 'fantastic'

Volleyball is a game with a lot moving parts, and Glenbard East has played much of its schedule with a spare or two in its lineup.

But the Rams are finally at full strength, and Thursday they showed South Elgin just how dangerous they can be when intact, winning the battle of second-place teams in the Upstate Eight Valley 25-12, 25-20.

Glenbard East coach Marci Maier likes what she's seeing from her team as it heads into the stretch run with the state tournament just a little more than two weeks away.

"We've only been healthy with everyone on the floor for about three, maybe four matches all season," she said. "Tonight, the first set was fantastic. We came out and that's what we're going to need as we go in the postseason.

"I like the energy level that we have right now," she added. "We're executing better. It's all starting to come together, and as we go into the postseason we will be firing on all cylinders."

Glenbard East outside hitter Tyler Greene was hitting on all cylinders in Game 1, serving 7 straight points to give the Rams a 14-3 lead before he was pulled in favor of Peter Surlina, who finished off the 12-0 run with 4 service points of his own.

"Actually, that's twice this season that's happened," Greene said about the mid-service run substitution. "The coach was just trying to get Peter in there and give him some playing time in the back row."

Greene led Glenbard East (16-10, 6-1) with 6 kills and 6 digs. Justin Murphy added 6 kills, Mason Arnold had 10 assists and 4 digs, Jake Eagan had 10 assists, Jackson Kenny had 14 digs and Adrian Cebula added 4 kills.

"It's super fun to have our full team after not having it for a while," Greene said. "We've definitely been playing more solid volleyball. We just need to be consistent. We had trouble with that early in the season. Just play consistently and play up to our standards, no matter what happens with everybody else."

Everett Torres and Tyler Turner each had 5 kills, Joe Besler had 13 assists and Cameron Nylec added 5 kills and 4 assists for South Elgin (17-6, 5-2), which despite its record has struggled this season against quality opponents.

"When we play teams of a higher caliber like Glenbard East, we just don't always know how to respond," South Elgin coach Adam Plach said. "Our schedule isn't always the strongest, so we do beat up on some teams. It helps our ego and our record, but when we play better teams it's kind of a shock.

"But I can't say it's all us just playing bad," he added. "Marci's got a really good team. Glenbard East is always a pretty strong team. I also know that our guys can play much better than we showed tonight."

The victory kept Glenbard East a game behind West Aurora in the conference standings. West Aurora handed the Rams their only league loss.

"If somebody would like to knock off West Aurora, we'd greatly appreciate it," Maier said. "But we're going to do the only thing we can do now, which is focus on winning the rest of our conference games. And if someone knocks them off, we'll be happy to share the conference title with them. If not, we'll take second and be happy with that."