After learning that his Warriors would enter the state playoffs as the No. 8 seed in the Naperville North Sectional, Waubonsie Valley boys volleyball coach Al Lagger didn't hide his disdain when The Heat Index asked him if that was a fair seeding.
"No (it's not fair)," Lagger said on Wednesday night. "We got kind of hosed by the suburban Prairie schools that don't see us play."
Waubonsie (13-10), which will host one of the four regionals, is the lowest seeded team in the Naperville area.
Naperville Central (21-4) is the top seed, Neuqua Valley (27-3) is No. 2, Naperville North (17-7) is No. 3 and Benet (19-10) is No. 4.
North coach Roger Strausberger said his team could have been a No. 2 seed in his mind, but being third is about right considering his team is carrying seven losses.
"Even though all of our losses were to good opponents, they were still losses," he said.
The IHSA will release the seedings on Thurdsay and the pairings on Friday.
I'm sure the Naperville North and Naperville Central boys volleyball teams are currently focused on Thursday night's crosstown match, but the forward thinking The Back Row broke down this weekend's Lincoln-Way East tournament on Tuesday.
Previously-ranked but always dangerous Naperville North and Lake Forest will go head-to-head in Pool A, Lincoln-Way Central and Naperville Central will meet Friday at 5:30 p.m. for the right to advance from Pool B, and Sandburg and Lyons will meet Friday at 5:30 p.m. to emerge from Pool D.
Brother Rice, which had lost three consecutive matches following Monday's defeat to Oak Park, should get back on track in Pool C against Oak Lawn, Joliet and Maine East.
As for the crosstown match on Thursday, I wouldn't even go if I wasn't essentially required by law. Yes, the Redhawks beat North at the Tiger Classic to break a 14-match losing streak. Yes, the Huskies evened the score in the first DVC match.
Nothing against the two squads, but watching rivals play is worthless in terms of evaluating the scene.
The reason Morton is seeded fourth in Pool B for the Benet Invitational isn't because tournament director Amy Van Eekeren thought the Mustangs are one of the two weakest teams in the eight-team event that begins Friday night.
It's because information was scarce. Believe you me, I spent an hour longer than I wanted to searching for scraps for this post.
"I tried to do it as fair as possible," Van Eekeren said. "A couple people didn't send it in, so then we tried to look up their records online. Well, you know, not everything was up to date."
Morton isa great team. They were undefeated until we (LT) beat them. They are very scrappy and play very solid defence. Still a little wild in other aspects but they will provide a good game for anyone.
The Wildcats, which have lost only to No. 4 Glenbard East, are now the highest ranked team in the Naperville area. Naperville North, which beat Wheaton North in three games on Monday to improve to 9-5, is 10th.
Naperville Central was second two weeks ago and sixth last week. The Redhawks are out of the Top 10 this week.
Friday in a nonconference match against visiting Evanston, the Redwings found consistency of a positive nature as Bill Foran had 11 kills and two blocks and Mike Quigley added 10 kills to lead the hosts to a 25-22, 25-20 victory.
"Last week at Glenbard East [tournament], for some reason we did not play our game at all," Foran said. "We were slowing down the tempo. But we picked it up this week against St. Francis and now tonight. As long as we play like we can, we can beat anybody."
This is a good sign for the team that took a six-match win streak to the Springfest last week only to lose three of its first four games. Benet (12-5) showed the heart against St. Francis. Now the Redwings need to show this an every day thing.
If you read your Sun on Thursday you might have read a correction that ran on Page 2 that mentioned that an item in Wednesday's Prep Rewind should have read that Waubonsie Valley defeated Larkin.
It's always nice when the only piece of information that you provide is completely wrong.
This time it's true. The Waubonsie Valley boys volleyball team lost its first conference match on Thursday.
But, this time, don't take my word on it. Ask the Beacon News.
The 25-18, 25-20 loss to Bartlett makes Waubonsie 7-7 overall and 2-1 in the UEC. One loss early in the season won't keep the Warriors out of the title chase. But a couple more?
"We just said that it's up to them," said (Waubonsie coach Alan) Lagger about his team's potential
Naperville North senior Jon Bunge told The Heat Index on Tuesday night that he visited Orange Coast College last week and that the two-year school in Costa Mesa, Calif, could be where he plays his college volleyball.
Bunge said he hasn't made up his mind where he will go, but a deicsion will be made soon.
"It's getting to that time," Bunge said.
The All-City outside hitter may not know exactly where he wants to play, but he's got a pretty good idea where in general he wants to spend his college years.
The boys volleyball rankings published in Monday's Chicago Sun-Times triggered a few posts on the volleyballmag.com message board.
One poster in particular -- nvhsoh989 -- took issue with St. Francis still being in the Top 10 after Neuqua beat the Spartans at the Glenbard East Sprinfest on Saturday. And it didn't help that Naperville North moved up to No. 8.
how can they rank st. francis at 10 and not rank Neuqua when Neuqua beat Francis in 2?? i don't care if francis was missing players, they still had they're top players, and we (Neuqua) were playing without our starting setter and outside the entire tournament. we've now beat Nap. North and Francis, yet both are rated above us. hinsdale central loses to Oswego, and doesn't move down?? Sun-times deserves zero credibility.
Naperville Central at No. 7 is the only Naperville-area team ranked in the Chicago Tribune boys volleyball Top 10 published on Sunday.
The Redhawks (12-1) will play Naperville North in DVC play on Tuesday, 10 days after ending a 14-game losing streak to the Huskies with their three-game win at the Tiger Classic.
The Chicago Sun-Times rankings will be updated on Monday. Central was seventh in last week's poll and the Huskies were ninth.
After seeing the team she coaches rough her up for most of five games on Saturday, Benet boys volleyball coach Amy Van Eekeren was blessed with the salve of seeing her daughter's youth soccer team win.
When The Heat Index caught up with Van Eekeren a few minutes later, she offered to tabulate Benet's cumulative statistics at Glenbard East's Springfest. But she also offered some honesty, saying it didn't really matter what her team put on paper at the tournament in Lombard.
Her team had let her down.
The Redwings (10-5) entered the 10th annual Springfest on a six-match win streak, a stretch that included a championship at the Argo tournament last week and two wins in the bronze bracket of the Marist Invite the week prior.
Before and after the 25-16, 25-15 win over West Aurora, which gave the Redwings 11th place in the tournament, Van Eekeren said it was Benet's best players that had the worst showing on Saturday.
The Neuqua Valley boys volleyball team placed third on Saturday at the Glenbard East Springfest, and the Wildcats did it without two seniors who were suspended for violating team rules.
Neuqua coach Erich Mendoza told The Heat Index that setter Sean Harmon and outside hitter Collin Adler were suspended for all five games of the tournament on Saturday and Tuesday's match vs. St. Charles East.
Harmon and Adler will be allowed to play at the Streamwood tournament on April 12.
"They broke some team rules and they're being punished for it," Mendoza said. "That's all I can really tell you."
Brad Engel is the longest-tenured member of The Sun sports staff and has won several national and state awards in his coverage of preps as well as the Chicago Bears, Chicago Fire and general sports.
Paul LaTour
Paul LaTour has been honored with national awards in each of the last three years and currently serves as The Sun's sports enterprise writer in addition to his duties covering high school and college sports.
Dustin Michael Harris
Dustin Michael Harris joined The Sun in August 2005 and has covered everything from high school sports to men's college basketball in addition to his new role as one of The Sun's sports columnists.
Patrick Mooney
Patrick Mooney covered politics, prep sports and professional baseball for several print and online media outlets before joining The Sun in August 2007. He concentrates on prep sports, writing features, profiles and breaking recruiting news.
Sean Fuchs
Sean Fuchs joined The Sun in January 2008 and covers prep football in addition to swimming and diving and other high school sports. During his career, he’s won national awards covering prep, college and pro sports.
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Chris Sosa
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