Boys volleyball: Another big win for sectional finalist Libertyville

Little Teddy must have a big smile on his face right about now.

Libertyville coach Jenny Smith couldn't be at Friday's boys volleyball sectional semifinal against Barrington due to the birth of her son, Theodore James, on Wednesday.

So the Wildcats went out and scored a big win for coach - and Ted.

Libertyville came out firing on all cylinders, defeating top seed Barrington 26-24, 25-21 on the Broncos' home court.

"She couldn't be here," said Wildcats junior setter Ryan Hirschel, "so we wanted to win this for her real bad."

Hirschel excelled Friday with 21 assists, while sophomore outside hitter Jack Stevens led the Libertyville attack with 11 kills and 2 aces.

Barrington senior Ethan Carroll, the Mid-Suburban West player of the year, had an exemplary match, earning 13 kills, passing at 2.6 while getting 3 blocks and 12 digs.

"Ethan was great," said Broncos coach Rob Ridenour. "I'm so proud of the way he played tonight. He basically kept us in the game."

"We gave it our all," Carroll said. "It just wasn't enough."

Libertyville led throughout the first set, but Barrington finally caught up and tied it at 24-24 on a block kill by Carroll.

Then Hirschel put the next ball down, and middle Shane Feiereisel scored a block kill to put game one in the books for the Wildcats.

"Barrington's an amazing team," said Hirschel. "We've always believed in ourselves, but we might have started out playing a little scared in the beginning. We got off to a quick start, though, and that really helped."

Barrington ran out to a 12-9 lead in the second set and seemed to have the momentum going its way.

But Libertyville scored 6 of the next 7 points, taking the lead for good on a shared block kill by Nick Zoellick and Mark Demaree.

The Broncos could only come as close as 23-20 in the late going, and the Wildcats closed out the match with a point in the middle by Feiereisel, then a Stevens kill off a perfect set from Hirschel.

"The guys won tonight by playing smart," said Libertyville assistant coach Adam Stuart, who took over the reins Friday in the absence of Smith. "Against a tall team like Barrington, you've got to set the ball off the net, and you've got to hit the ball on its way up - you can't wait for it to get too low. Our young guys have been buying in to that and they're doing what it takes to succeed."

"A win is a win," added Stuart. "We're still playing volleyball, and that's because of all of the hard work they've put in. When you work as hard as these guys do, no stage is too big."

Barrington said goodbye after the loss to nine stellar seniors who have meant a lot to the program, including Carroll, Jack Ridgway, Justin Tiao, James Tiao, Matt Rowley, Mikey Stefan, Joe Roeckell, Andrew Gugulski and TJ Murray.

"We're going to miss those guys in a lot of different ways," said Ridenour. "They've all got very unique characteristics that make them very cool kids."

"Libertyville's defense was amazing tonight," added Ridenour. "That was the difference in the match."