Boys volleyball: Barrington, Hononegah advance at Grant sectional
After nearly getting upset in the regional championship by No. 4-seeded Lake Zurich on Thursday, No. 1-seeded Barrington wasn't taking any chances against No. 3 Vernon Hills Saturday at the Grant boys volleyball sectional semifinals.
The Broncos started off strong with a 25-17 victory over the Cougars in the first set and they never looked back as they posted a 25-16 win in the second set to advance to the sectional championship game against No. 2 Rockton Hononegah Tuesday at 6 p.m.
The Indians toppled No. 1 Stevenson 27-25, 25-22 in a contest that was moved up to 10:30 a.m. by the IHSA to accommodate Rockton Hononegah's graduation ceremony later in the day on Saturday.
Barrington (29-7) was never seriously threatened by Vernon Hills (30-8) in its match as the Broncos set the tone early on while the Cougars were forced to play catch-up the whole way.
"We are almost always in system in the serve and that was a challenge for us offensively today," said Vernon Hills coach Chris Curry. "With a team like Barrington you've got to put pressure on them right away. We gave them too many chances to set their middles, and our passing and serving was not there. But we had a better season than a lot of people thought we would and we exceeded a lot of people's expectations."
Vernon Hills beat Barrington three weeks ago, but the Broncos were without 6-foot-11 junior Cole Hartke (5 kills, 2 aces, 2 digs Saturday) in that match.
"We played a great game, and it was really just a matter of who could make fewer errors today," said Hartke. "We have to come out with fire (against Rockton Hononegah) and play our game."
Besides Hartke's presence back in the lineup recently after missing a lot of time due to injury, Barrington got a huge performance from senior Carsten Wegh with 6 kills, 6 assists, 11 digs and 4 blocks. The Broncos' attack also featured 4 kills from Gavin Rohlwing, 4 kills from Eli Rodda, and 3 kills from John Sun. Barrington's Adrian Wu had 8 assists while teammate Matt Louis had 4 blocks.
David Rzepa and David Wu led the Cougars with 6 kills each while teammate Josh Cahill had 3 kills. Vernon Hills' Brian Kim had 11 assists and teammate Nick Crisanti had 9 assists. Marco Gryzlo had 3 digs for Barrington.
"We probably played one of the most technically sound matches we've played all year. They were really confident, and I take nothing away from Vernon Hills. They are a phenomenal team," said Barrington coach Charlie Spry. "Lake Zurich tested us and pushed us on Thursday to kind of refocus us and then we brought that focus right into today."
Stevenson (28-10) fell behind Rockton Hononegah 8-2 right away in the first set, but the Patriots bounced back strongly to take an 18-14 lead later in the set.
The first set was a dogfight the rest of the way with Stevenson holding a slim 21-19 lead only to see the Indians pull out a 27-25 win in a set that displayed a lot of back-to-back action by both squads.
"When you lose by a combined five points, matches like that can go either way. But for the first time all year we got stuck in a rotation that we couldn't get out of and that really was the deciding factor in the match," said Stevenson coach Eric Goolish, whose team beat host Grayslake Central in three sets for the regional title on Thursday. "I was very happy though with how our guys responded in terms of fighting back because we had opportunities where we could have rolled over and kind of just went away."
The second set also turned into a bit of a nail-biter down the stretch. But the Patriots trailed the entire way with Rockton Hononegah leading 12-7 early, and 20-12 before Stevenson was able to claw back to within 23-19 as the Indians were forced into taking a timeout.
But the Pats could not muster up any more late-game magic as the Indians held on for the 25-22 victory for the match and a trip to the sectional finals against Barrington.
As was the case throughout the 2023 season, Stevenson was led by the attack of senior outside hitters Sam Nuudel and Ramsey Engel, who was a co-captain along with senior teammate David Wang.
"We will miss them for sure, and that is a void we will have to fill next season," said Goolish following the narrow defeat on Saturday. "Coming up a little short is disappointing, but the guys put in the time to prepare so that is all that you can hope for."
"It's been an incredible year for us. We graduated a ton of people from last year's successful team and we were able to pick up three championships along the way," added Goolish. "We won the Lake County Invite, we were North Suburban Conference champs, and then we won the regional championship so our preparation was good."