Now that Naperville Central has won the Hoffman Estates Invitational and is ranked No. 2 in the Sun-Times' boys volleyball poll, we get to see how good the Redhawks are this weekend at the Tiger Classic.
They maybe as good as that ranking. Or maybe not.
A poster on a thread at volleyballmag.com said this on Monday night about the Redhawks: "they are definitely not the 2nd best team in the state."
A second one responds: "how does a team go from unranked to 2nd in the state?"
Which leads to this post:
"if i were you, id pay no attention to the sun times' rankings, as the reporter who writes them seems to pay no attention to what actually goes on. im fairly sure he just gets names and match results, and constructs a list based on just that. he doesnt actually know which teams are better than the others.
for any of you on your school newspapers, you know that lazy reporting leads to a) wrong information and angry readers."
Journalism lessons aside, the tournament at Wheaton Warrenville South High School will certainly put Central to the test, starting with pool play against No. 7 Marist and Wheaton North on Thursday night. There are three other top-10 teams in the 24-team megatourney, including No. 5 Naperville North and defending state champ WW South.
Defending Ohio state champion Archbishop Moeller of Cincinnati and DeSmet Jesuit, a state championship program from Missouri, will add to the star power.
Everyone knows this is a the Boss Hog of boys volleyball tournaments. What not everyone agrees on is what to call the thing. The official name is the Tiger Classic.
A look at the schedules of tournament teams with pages on athletics2000.com shows us the following:
North calls it the "Best of the West."
Central, Carl Sandburg and DeSmet have it right, as "Tiger Classic."
Waubonsie Valley has it as "Illinois Best Invite."
Stagg and Andrew labeled it "Wheaton Warrenville South Invite."
Moeller has it as "Wheaton Warrenville Tournament."
York and Oak Park-River Forest left it as just "Wheaton Warrenville South."
(UPDATE: WW South coach Bill Schreier said in an email that the tournament name was changed from "Best of Illinois" to "Tiger Classic" when out of state teams were invited.)
Pool Play
There are four pools (A-B-C-G) playing on Thursday night. Waubonsie Valley is in Pool C and Central is in Pool G. Games start at 5 p.m. (1 vs. 2), 6:30 p.m. (1 vs. 3) and 8 p.m. (2 vs. 3).
Pool A
1. WW South
2. Glenbrook South
3. Lake Park
Pool B
1. Carl Sandburg
2. Oak Lawn
3. York
Pool C
1. Glenbrook North
2. Waubonsie Valley
3. St. Rita
Pool G
1. Marist
2. Naperville Central
3. Wheaton North
The other four pools (D-F-H-E) play on Friday night with the same schedule. Naperville North is in Pool E.
Pool D
1. Buffalo Grove
2. Lincoln-Way East
3. Evanston
Pool F
1. Lincoln-Way Central
2. DeSmet Jesuit
3. Stagg
Pool H
1. Archbishop Moeller
2. New Trier
3. Andrew
Pool E
1. Brother Rice
2. Naperville North
3. Oak Park-River Forest
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