Weary Knights dig deep vs. Lockport

Lincoln-Way Central's Kyle Overby returns a serve against Lockport.
(John Patsch/Herald News)

Font Size

Email

Bookmark

Black Text

White Text

Connor Wexter had tired legs and a sore back.

He also had a will to win.

Wexter dished out 20 assists in Lincoln-Way Central’s 25-21, 25-19 boys volleyball victory over host Lockport on Monday.

His setting helped Lincoln-Way (11-3, 2-0) find a way to get the job done on a night when Lockport put up a roadblock at the net and the effects of a grueling schedule nearly caught up with Central.

The Knights were playing their 13th match in the last nine days, a stretch highlighted by their run to the Bronze Division crown Saturday at the Wheaton Warrenville South Tiger Classic.

Wexter, a 5-foot-11 junior, tweaked his back at the tournament. He wasn’t about to let his competitive guard down.

“He’s very, very competitive,” Central coach Joann Holverson said. “And the setter’s somewhat like the quarterback is in a game of football. So, a lot of teams take on the personality of their setter.

“I think a lot of the competitiveness that you see from this team comes from Connor. I will say he’s playing hurt right now. His back has been really sore. He’s really a trooper even to be out there on the floor.

“He hurt it over the weekend. If you thought he was competitive today, you should see him on a good day.”

Wexter has to make every day a good day — or he can’t show his face at home. He comes from a family of sports competitors. His older sister, Jenna, won the Class AA girls pole vault championship for the Knights last spring. She is now freshman vaulter at Northern Iowa.

“Actually, our house is a lot of fun because we’re all so competitive,” Connor Wexter said. “Every one of my siblings — my little brother and both my older sisters — we all like to win. It’s a little tough to lose at our house.”

Wexter’s over-the-back set to Kyle Overby led to the kill shot that helped Central rally to within 5-4 of Lockport in Game 1. Overby, a junior outside hitter, followed with an eight-point service run that put the Knights on top for good 11-6. They led from start-to-finish in Game 2.

Overby topped a balanced Central attack with six kills. His strong hitting came on the heels of a school-record 20-kill performance in Central’s three-game loss to St. Rita on Friday. The old record was 18 kills by Drew Brown in 2004.

Tony Szajkovics added five kills and four blocks for the Knights. James Cummins had four kills and four blocks. Josh Kentner had three kills. Adam Sieger chipped in seven digs. Wexter also had three blocks — proving he has the ability to rise up at the net on occasion, too.

“Connor just happens to be an amazing setter,” Cummins said. “It’s an honor just to have him on the team, just because you can come up and you can expect the ball to be in the spot where it’s supposed to be, and it makes hitting such a good thing to do.”

On the rare occasion Wexter does not deliver the ball on target, he hears about it — but not from his extended family on the playing court. The good-natured chirps generally come from members of his real family. The crowd at his house is a tough one.

“They’re all high-level,” Holverson said. “And Connor really is one of the top setters in the state right now. He’s being recruited by UCLA and some other top schools. He’s very, very talented. We’re lucky to have him.”

The Knights felt somewhat lucky to dispatch of Lockport, too.

“Oh, do you know what?” Holverson said. “It’s like I said — their legs were dead. You could see on the floor we weren’t jumping quite as high as we normally jump. We weren’t quite as quick as we have been. We have Sandburg on Wednesday, and then I think they’ll get a well-deserved rest. Kyle (Overby) took 116 swings this weekend. And he jumps.

“They’re just really tired. It’s a rough stretch for us. But, you now, Lockport is a great team. They really have some strong attackers. We were lucky to be able to catch them off guard a little bit defensively. Otherwise, it could have been trouble, especially with us being tired like that. They really blocked very well.

“If I could point to one thing, I thought Lockport had a great blocking match against us.”

Lockport (4-4, 0-2) was led by Jake Boyce’s six kills. He also had two blocks. Patryk Tabernacki and Theo Sloan each chipped in four kills. Jake Labieniec had three kills.

“We’ve been doing a lot more team-building things outside of practice — dinners and just fun things where they can be themselves with each other, so they get used to each other’s personalities,” Lockport coach Janice Barnickel said. “The result is more communication on the court. They’re talking more. They’re trusting each other more. They’re not blaming somebody else when something goes wrong.

“So, I think, in all, it’s just making them more team-based instead of individual-based.”