Barrington gets the teamwork going to upend Schaumburg in boys volleyball

Defense is the name of the game in volleyball, and Barrington libero Marc Gryzlo is a standout in that area, especially in serve receive.

Turns out, the junior is pretty darn good from the service line as well.

With the Broncos trailing by 3 late in Set 1 Thursday night at Schaumburg, Gryzlo took over on serve and accounted for 8 straight points (including 2 aces) to completely turn the match around.

The Saxons had been playing great up until that point, but the Barrington rally took the wind out of their sails.

The Broncos, led by the play of Gryzlo and the hitting of Caleb Rohlwing, Jack O'Riordan and Quinn Kozak, came away with a 25-21, 25-11 victory in the Mid-Suburban West.

Gryzlo (17-of-18 on serve receive) said that recently he completely changed his serving pattern, and it's led to some newfound success.

"Before I tossed the ball behind me, but now I toss it in front of me," he said. "It helps with my hand contact a lot more, getting solid hits, and it's been very effective. You can call it a jump floater, whatever you want, but it works pretty well."

Broncos coach Charlie Spry mentioned Gryzlo has really started to come into his own.

"Marc has done a very good job for us," said the first-year coach, who's team is now 28-2, 9-0 in the West. "He's started to step into his role and has realized that he makes a huge difference for our team when he's engaged and is getting those points that matter."

Schaumburg had Barrington on the ropes in the first set. The teams traded points in the early going, but consecutive kills by Saxons junior outside hitter Christopher Radomski brought the hosts to an 18-15 advantage.

Then Barrington called time out.

"We had a team meeting," Spry said, "and talked about being good teammates and doing our job on our side of the court. We weren't doing that in the beginning of the match, and we haven't done it consistently all year.

"We've played with a ton of lineups this year, and we need to establish that, whoever is on the court, we need to support them. All of a sudden we decided to be a team and after that we played a lot better."

Gryzlo's run on serve put the Broncos ahead 23-18, and they closed out the first game on a kill by Rohlwing.

Gryzlo was at it again in Game 2, serving the first 8 points of the second set to give Barrington an 8-0 lead.

Schaumburg couldn't put together a comeback, and despite some stellar play from Saxons senior middle Adrian Maciejewski, Barrington closed out the match.

Despite the loss, Schaumburg coach Tim Murphy was impressed by his team's performance.

"I told the guys during a timeout," Murphy said, "that this is the best we've serve received in a couple of weeks.

"Barrington is a great team - they got a No. 2 sectional seed, that just came out today - and we gave them a run in game one and we're proud of that."