Boys volleyball: Metea Valley rallies from set down to beat South Elgin
South Elgin made adjustments to fill a big offensive hole in its home nonconference match with Metea Valley Tuesday.
Storm coach Jess Bossenga's lineup changes to fill the void worked in the first set, which South Elgin won, 25-21.
However, Metea Valley countered with its own modifications and won the next two sets, 25-19 and 25-13 to win the match.
"We were playing a little short-handed, Sean Harvey was out today. You can throw up a lot of balls to him and he can swing so we needed other people to step into that role today," Bossenga said. "We tried to come out with some focus, and we definitely did in that first game. We had good energy, we moved the ball around and we took advantage of the things that we were trying to."
South Elgin (8-3) never trailed in the first set. The Mustangs knotted the contest three times in the early going, but the Storm managed to regain the lead. After the third tie, South Elgin went on a 12-5 run ending on a spike by Andrew Galanes (11 kills, 10 assists and 2 blocks) to go up 19-13. Metea Valley (13-6) rallied and pulled within 23-20 on a Marco Palcynski kill. Another Galanes strike put the contest at match point and a Mustang hitting error sealed the win.
"After the first set, we made a couple of lineup changes. We saw what they were doing, and we changed offensively and defensively," said Metea Valley coach Darren Honda. "I think that made a difference. Also, our blocking really picked up."
The Mustangs scored the first point of the second set on a Haas Duggirala spike (10 kills) and after a 3-3 tie, never relinquished the lead. The Storm pulled within 17-16 on one of Kyle Aluquin's six kills but Metea Valley closed out the contest on an 8-3 run.
"Our offense started humming in the second set. Chad (Luckinbill) was hitting well from the outside. Bartosz (Chmielewski) was getting us points in our middle and when we brought in Haas, he had a few kills and got us started," Honda said. "Both Haas and Robert (Stewart) had a lot of blocks. They were touching a lot of balls and changing South Elgin shots. We were able to get the ball back a lot more."
"They were using their middle a lot more in the in the second game and that hurt us," Bossenga said.
The third set was another close contest at the start. Metea Valley took an early lead, but the Storm tied it at 7-7 and capitalizing on Mustang errors took a 9-7 lead. Metea Valley retied the game, 9-9 on a Chmielewski ace. The Mustangs then took control, outscoring South Elgin 16-4 to win the game and the match.
"We're trying to fight back, and we were making a few more mistakes," said Bossenga. "Trying to be comfortable with everybody who's on the floor in slightly different roles caught up to us a little bit at the end."
"In the first set we made a bunch of errors. We were serving out, we were hitting out and not passing. After the first set we realized that they're not beating us we're beating ourselves," said Luckinbill, who had a match-high 12 kills. "In the second and third sets, we cleaned it up and we didn't make many errors. Also, our blocking got really good."
Aidan Murphy earned 31 assists and made nine digs for the Mustangs. Ashwin Achanta notched 8 digs.
The Storm's Ryan Vo tallied 15 assists and classmate Caiden Kapraun had 10 digs.