Boys volleyball: Barrington beats hosts to win Libertyville quad

Friday night's Libertyville boys volleyball quad produced a memorable championship game.

Both the Wildcats and Barrington won their first two matches of the tourney, over Highland Park and Deerfield, to set up the title tilt between the two schools.

And in the end, it was the Broncos who came out on top.

Barrington overcame some obstacles, including a set one loss and some lengthy officials delays, to score an 18-25, 25-21, 25-21 win over the Wildcats.

"We were missing some guys today, so it's great that we held it together and played good volleyball," said Broncos coach Charlie Spry, who's team improved to 25-2 on the season.

Junior Quinn Kozak came up big late in the third set to seal the Barrington win, but Libertyville coach Jenny Smith was upbeat despite the tough loss.

"I thought we really played well," said Smith, "except for making some important errors at the beginning of the second and third sets.

"We were able to battle back a lot of times. Our guys were serving aggressive, we were blocking in system, and we were able to run our offense the way we wanted to run it."

Libertyville excelled in all phases, especially from the service line, in taking a 1-set match lead. Senior Reece Wiatrowski served the Wildcats into a 14-7 advantage, with 2 aces and several more serves that were unreturnable.

The Wildcats kept the pressure on and 2 late kills by junior Patrick Akers closed out set one.

"We had some mental lapses in the first set," said Spry, "like not passing five or six balls in a row. We did a good job of bouncing back and playing together thereafter."

The Broncos righted the ship in the second set, getting out to a big lead and then trading sideouts until 6-10 sophomore outside hitter Cole Hartke closed things out with two unstoppable kills to tie the match at 1 apiece.

"I think when we started out, we were playing so many different lineups, doing so many different things, that it turned into a mental thing," said Spry.

"We just had to tell ourselves that we're good enough to play with what we've got - just play good volleyball, and take care of business."

Barrington opened an 8-3 advantage in the deciding game, but Libertyville slowly fought their way back into it.

A kill from Akers brought the Wildcats to within 22-20, and it looked like they were going to get even closer until Kozak stepped up with a clutch performance.

First the junior hammered a kill off the block, then he served up an ace on a ball that just tipped the top of the net, hesitated for a moment, then fell untouched on the Libertyville side.

After a Libertyville sideout, a final kill from Hartke gave Barrington the win and a 3-0 mark in the quad.

"Quinn played really good ball for us all day," said Spry. "He's usually our right side, but he's playing outside for us right now. He's just been very solid."

Smith was also proud of her team's performance in the invite.

"We played all three matches tough," said the coach. "We were looking forward to playing Barrington, but (in this match) it just wasn't our day."