Boys volleyball: March 2008 Archives

The Benet boys volleyball team became the third Naperville-area club to win a tournament championship this season with its clean sweep of the Argo Invitational on Saturday.

Two weeks ago, Naperville North won at Buffalo Grove and Naperville Central won at Hoffman Estates.

Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley are lacking tournament titles, but at least the Warriors have played in a couple tournaments already. Neuqua plays in its first tournament this weekend at Glenbard East.

Neither of the out of state entries in the Tiger Classic made it to the gold bracket, despite arriving at tournament with impressive pedigrees.

Archbishop Moeller of Cincinnati is the defending state champion in Ohio. Mueller has won five state titles, including three of the last four.

The Crusaders went 3-2 and finished in 11th place.

DeSmet Jesuit is a former state champion in Missouri that has made it to the final four or the championship game every year but one in the 11 years boys volleyball has been an sanctioned sport.

The Spartans went 4-1, winning the silver bracket, to finish in ninth place.

Naperville North won its pool at the Tiger Classic on Friday night, beating the tournament's defending champion Brother Rice and Oak Park-River Forest, both in two games.

The Huskies are on the opposite side of the gold bracket than Naperville Central. The teams could meet in the tournament championship.

The Sun-Times' No. 5 Huskies beat Brother Rice 25-20, 25-20 and beat OPRF 25-13, 25-17 to advance to the gold bracket.

North (6-2) will play Buffalo Grove (4-2) in the gold quarterfinals Saturday at 1 p.m. Buffalo Grove won its pool on Friday with wins over Evanston and Lincoln-Way East.

A contingent of four Neuqua Valley boys volleyball players were in attendance at the Tiger Classic on Thursday night, checking out the action, scouting the teams and mingling with the Waubonsie Valley and Naperville Central folks.

There were a couple Naperville North guys there, too, but then again the Huskies are playing in the tournament. I guess even if you didn't have a game, the fieldhouse at WW South was still the place to be for Naperville boys volleyball on Thursday night.

"Oh definitely," said Neuqua senior Jake Blackman, who along with Brian Clark and two other Wildcats, spent the night with pencil and paper scouting potential opponents.

I heard a couple Central parents ask Neuqua players the same question: When do you guys play?

Neuqua answer: we're not in this tournament.

Central parent: Really?

Naperville Central will put its undefeated record on the line Saturday against Sun-Times' No. 8 Sandburg in the quarterfinals of the Tiger Classic.

The second-ranked Redhawks (8-0) won their pool on Thursday night with an impressive three-game win over No. 7 Marist and a smooth-sailing TKO of Wheaton North.

Making it to the golden bracket in this prestigious 24-team monster at Wheaton Warrenville South is an honor. Central junior Dan Dierking knows that, but he says the Redhawks want more.

"The teams here are really good teams," said the 6-foot-5 outside hitter. "I'm sure that (performing well on Saturday) gives us a little leg up, but we just have to keep pushing the whole season. We can't just stop at any point. We have to push throughout the whole year."

The most interesting part of this comprehensive story on Rivals.com previewing the Tiger Classic is how Wheaton Warrenville South coach Bill Schreier keeps seeking out the best teams.

To keep the competition at a high level, teams are put on a waiting list and as openings occur, the tournament director fills from the list. If teams are not competitive they are not asked back.

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 trio of shortstops heads up the area's five-player contingent named to the Sun-Times' Top 100 softball list released on Saturday.

According to prepvolleyball.com, Waubonsie Valley's Alex Gigler and Naperville Central's Matt Yanz will be teammates next year at Carthage College.

The college recruiting page on the site's message board said the two seniors gave the Division III school in Wisconsin verbal commitments. Both Gigler and Yanz play their club volleyball at Sports Performance.

The Heat Index has learned that Naperville North senior Mike Henry (far right) will not miss the first month of the season as expected.

In fact the outside hitter said will play in North's opener on Wednesday night against Neuqua Valley. The season opener for North is a rematch of last year's sectional final that the Wildcats won.

In an email sent to the Heat Index late Tuesday night, Henry said the results of a bone scan he had on Friday revealed that he has a bone bruise in his lower back that was big enough to appear on the MRI he had on March 12. At that time, Henry was told the injury was probably a stress fracture.

When I ran into Henry after Neuqua's season opener on Thursday, he lifted up his shirt to display the back brace, saying "I got this," in a way that indicated things had only gotten worse. Things are now looking much better for Henry. Maybe not so much for Neuqua Valley.

This is a very slick production from frenchfryowners showing Neuqua Valley's win over Naperville North in the sectional championship last year. There is a nice intro with voices lifted from the four-letter network and inspirational music to boot.

Since North will visit Neuqua on Wednesday in a rematch of this championship game, I though the interested parties would like another look at how things went last spring.