L-W Central upstages rival Griffins

FRANKFORT — Lincoln-Way Central High School’s boys volleyball team had been pointing toward this match for a couple of weeks.

After losing to Lincoln-Way East in two games on April 20 in New Lenox, the Knights planned on getting revenge against their rivals when the two squads met again on Wednesday.

And pulling a page out of the Griffins’ book from their win in that earlier match, it was the Knights who excelled in hitting, blocking and defense this time around.

The Knights jumped out to early advantages in both games and wound up claiming a 25-22, 25-16 Southwest Suburban Conference Red victory to spoil East’s senior night.

“We had four days to practice and the weekend off and the combination of the rest and having time to be able to work on little things helped us,” Central coach Joann Holverson said. “We were able to be more consistent and that was nice to see.”

Central (19-9, 7-3) only trailed at 3-2 in the second game after taking the lead for good over East (18-9, 7-2) at 7-6 in the opener.

The Griffins trailed at 10-9 in the finale before the Knights used a 10-4 spurt to break things open for good.

James Cummins (9 kills, 5 blocks), Josh Kentner (7 kills) and Tony Szajkovics (4 blocks) each supplied big kills and blocks in that run.

Cummins provided three of the final five points on blocks or kills, Billy Pochron (6 kills) added a kill and Connor Wexter (24 assists, 5 blocks) got a block for the last point.

“During the last few weeks of practice, we were anticipating this game,” Cummins said. “We really spent a lot of time focusing on their key hitters and figuring out ways to shut them down and I feel that we did that very well and it was a nice win.”

In the first game, East fell behind 15-9 following a kill by Kyle Overby (4 kills, 5 blocks) but managed to close to within two points on three occasions.

A kill by Trevor Miroslaw (4 kills) and an ace from Greg Robinson made it 20-18 and George Langheld (7 kills, 8 digs) added another kill to pull the Griffins within 21-19.

After Cummins got a pair of kills to put the Knights up 24-20, Justin Allen (7 kills) got a kill and East closed to within 24-22 before Overby ended things with another kill. Central also received 14 digs from Adam Sieger, while Scott Burke handed out 31 assists and Patrick Sinwelski added 5 digs for East.

“This was a big game for us and we all knew that it was coming,” Kentner said. “We worked on what we needed to and fortunately we got it. It feels great since there’s nothing like losing to them at your place and then beating them at their place.”

Things had been going well for the Griffins, but the departure of one of their regulars has forced coach Dawn Murphy to scramble to try to get things back together.

“Where we should be peaking now, we are on the path to regrouping,” Murphy said. “So, we’re going to spend the next two weeks regrouping and working on our communication so that we can pull it together for postseason play. Central’s plan was to stop George and they did and we weren’t blocking as well.”