H-F turns tables on Marian Catholic

Marian Catholic's Jay Hochstetler sets the ball against Homewood-Flossmoor.
(Art Vassy/SouthtownStar)

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After his team stumbled out of the gate this season, Homewood-Flossmoor coach Tony Kruse is starting to see the Vikings come around.

Monday’s 25-13, 25-20 nonconference victory over Marian Catholic provided him with some solid evidence of that.

“I think we’re starting to hit our stride right now,” Kruse said. “We don’t look like a 6-12 team, for sure. Our start was pretty bad this year, but we’re definitely playing much better right now. Hopefully, the start of our season won’t hurt us too much as playoff seedings come around.”

The Vikings (6-12) received a strong effort from senior outside hitter Matt Green (11 kills).

“It was nice to come out and beat Marian,” Green said. “We lost a close match to them earlier this year in a tournament, so this was kind of a big win for us here.”

Kruse was also pleased to see his team register a win over a local rival.

“A lot of our guys know the Marian kids, so this is of course a pretty big one for us,” he said. “Right now, we’re just trying to pile wins together.”

H-F also received a six-block effort from junior middle David Adeleye, who is in his first season of playing competitive volleyball.

“David got cut from the basketball program this year, so he decided to come out with us,” Kruse said. “We’re glad to have him with us, that’s for sure. Tonight was really the first night that he’d actually gotten any playing time. I can’t say enough about the way that he played.”

Marian Catholic (7-13) was led by Matt Knott (six kills, three blocks, ace).

The Vikings took advantage of five straight Spartans hitting errors to claim a 14-6 lead midway through Game 1. A block from Nick Calgaro and kill from Green gave H-F a 22-12 edge, before two more Marian hitting errors and another kill from Green closed the game out.

H-F raced to a 5-0 lead early in the second game, but the Spartans eventually fought back to tie the contest at 11, and took a 12-11 lead thanks to a kill from Ryan Reid.

Both teams fought back and forth through the middle portion of the match before Marian took a 20-19 lead courtesy of a kill by David Holliday.

A Marian hitting error and two kills from Green gave H-F a 22-20 lead.

The Vikings finished the match thanks to a kill by Green and a block by Calgaro.

“We did a nice job fighting back in Game 2,” Kruse said. “We’ve played everybody tough in first games this year, but that second game has always been our problem. It was good to see us get down and fight our way through a bad stretch tonight.”