Boys volleyball: Lake Zurich tops Buffalo Grove in two sets
The Buffalo Grove boys volleyball team finally faced a mountain it couldn't climb.
The Bison have made a habit lately of overcoming huge deficits in matches to score some big victories.
But Friday at the Barrington sectional semifinal, Lake Zurich showed why it's the sectional's No. 2 seed.
The Bears took control of both sets early en route to a 25-19, 25-22 win.
"This is great," said Lake Zurich 6-foot-9 senior middle/right side Andrew Gilbertson, who put the down the match-winning kill.
"I actually had a rough match tonight. Buffalo Grove is not a tall team, but they're a great blocking team. And I kept hitting into their block."
"I just felt like everyone on our team played well," Gilbertson added. "Our serve receive was good and our passing was outstanding. It was a total team effort."
Danny Kraversky led the Bears defensive effort with 14 digs, while Nick Meyer had a team high 8 kills.
"The last couple of weeks we've been pushing team building," said Lake Zurich coach Lesly Ravenscraft, "And our guys have really bought into it. They've been playing together and supporting each other and that was the reason we won tonight. Everybody stepped up their game."
Greg Schneider was 11-for-11 on service for the Bison.
"We battled the entire match," said BG coach Tim Kosiek. "Unfortunately we made too many errors. We had five service errors tonight and you can't do that at this level against a team like Lake Zurich."
The Bears battered the way to a 7-1 lead in Game 1.
They kept siding out to maintain the advantage throughout the set.
BG scored four straight points to close to within 23-19 on a shared block by Daniel Rogowski and Chris Tsourmas.
But Lake Zurich closed out Game 1 when BG hit the next ball out, then committed another error on set point.
"When our hitters got the sets they were putting the ball down," Gilbertson said. "There was no doubt about it."
BG got down big again in the second set but staged one of its patented rallies to come within 23-22 after a kill by Tsourmas.
Lake Zurich called a time out and a long stretch of great defense by both teams ensued on the next point.
Junior Jake Gorey finally brought the Bears to the brink with his perfectly-placed shot to the right corner of the BG side of the court.
Gilbertson then put the win in the Bears' column on the next play.
Middle Nate Amos added 7 kills for Lake Zurich while setter Zach Schnittker of BG had 18 assists and 3 kills.
Blake Maley finished 15-of-16 on serve receive for the Bison.
"Lake Zurich is a great team and we knew that coming in," Kosiek said. "We played with a lot of heart tonight as we always do, but we made too many mistakes."
"I'm so proud of this group," added Kosiek of his team which won the Mid-Suburban League championship this year with an 11-0 mark. "They've accomplished so much this season and we take great pride in their accomplishments."