Carmel shakes off rust vs. Antioch

Carmel's Jake Wolfe tries to spike the ball over Antioch's Randy Fagan.
(Michael Schmidt/News-Sun)

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If practice does, indeed, make perfect, then you shouldn't be surprised if Carmel's boys volleyball team is just about perfect the next time it takes the court for a match.

That's because the Corsairs are currently in the midst of a stretch in which they are playing exactly one match in 21 days -- a scheduling oddity that will afford the team plenty of time to practice and improve on what, to date, is a losing (2-6) record.

Win No. 2 actually came on Monday -- 25-14, 23-25, 25-15 -- over an 0-2 Antioch team that showed spunk in Game 2, but lacked the firepower to stay with the Corsairs.

After Carmel dominated Game 1, the Corsairs built a 23-18 lead in Game 2, only to see Ryan Lulofs step to the service line and run off the final six points to keep Antioch in the match.

Andre Sippy had a pair of kills in the Sequoit surge, which was their highlight of the night.

Carmel's highlight was winning even though three starters have yet to return from spring break.

When they return, and with 10 days before the next match, things should be much better on the Mundelein side the remainder of this campaign.

"We're still a young team," noted Carmel coach Kevin Nylen. "We got a little complacent in the second game."

Kevin Kneeland had six kills, Erik Liederbach five and Andrew Adamson four to lead the winners.

Kneeland is a jumping-jack who figures to develop into quite a weapon on the front line.

"Kneeland is so raw," Nylen said of the junior. "He's a basketball player who can jump out of gym. We just have to get him into the system."