Boys volleyball: St. Charles North sweeps Saints for 1st DuKane win

Brady Rasso never lost faith.

Rasso, St. Charles North's senior middle hitter, sustained the verbal motivation at the net to help propel the North Stars to a 25-22, 25-23 sweep of St. Charles East on Tuesday.

The North Stars (6-19, 1-4) trailed 17-11 and 23-19 in the second set, but still found a way to grind through both deficits to clinch the win and sweep the season series with the Saints.

It also helped net them their first DuKane Conference win of the season.

"I know we're having a pretty down year, obviously the record doesn't show how we want to be," Rasso said. "We play a very hard and tough schedule, so the fact we can put two collectively good sets together shows a lot about our group. Our coach [Todd Weimer] talked about it: We're very tenacious and we showed a lot of grit when sometimes it's not there. I think we put it all together tonight."

Rasso, who had five kills, embraces his leadership role, in whatever way he can.

"I have the role of a captain. Whether it's there or not, I think the job needs to be there to not only calm people down and let people know when they do a good job," Rasso said. "But, I'm there to keep everyone together and keep everyone collected to keep fighting. That's the overall goal."

Trailing 23-19 in set two, the North Stars found their momentum in both strong play at the net and through Saints attack errors. A Rasso block was sandwiched between two attack errors before John Jakaitis' kill tied it at 23.

Ethan Brain had a block of his own before Rasso's finish at the net completed the impressive comeback to stun St. Charles East (5-19, 0-5).

"Just really proud of the boys," Weimer said. "We've been struggling all season and we've been in a lot of our matches, but we just stop playing 15-15, 18-18 and the other team just kind of takes it away. We even talked about playing Glenbard East last week and it was 19-17; called timeout and they scored the last six points to beat us 25-17. We've been in that position."

"We talked the mental game tonight quite a bit," Weimer continued. "We've already played these guys at a tournament [and] beat them in two [sets]. We knew it was going to be a tough match for us coming in both looking for our first [DuKane] Conference win. It's on their home court ... we had a lot of obstacles and challenges tonight. Just really proud of the boys."

North Stars freshman libero Joey Stablein was also crucial in their comeback, standing tall at the service line.

"He's a dog," Rasso said. "I can't say anything less than that. I mean, he [helps score] the last seven points from the service line. It takes a lot of guts to do that. I mean, whether you're a freshman or a senior, there's a lot of pressure riding on him because he misses a serve, momentum swings; you just don't know so he's an incredible player. He shows great tenacity and extreme maturity out there. It's just an absolute pleasure to have him out there."

The Saints, meanwhile, had a learning opportunity in ultimately falling short of forcing a third set despite a pair of sizable leads.

"I think it's just a matter of being consistent in an emotional match," Saints coach Kate McCullagh said. "You're playing North. It's bound to be more than just the game. I think once the momentum shifts, it's easy to rattle off a few points and I think that's what happened at that point."