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Marotta’s effort carries Knights
Updated: May 10, 2011 10:00PM
With seven players standing 6-foot-3 or taller on the Lincoln-Way Central roster, Jake Marotta can get lost in the shuffle at times.
But the 5-10 senior outside hitter wouldn’t have it any other way.
Supplying a huge kill and an ace late, Marotta’s 10 kills overall helped Central to a 25-23, 21-25, 25-20 win Tuesday at Andrew in the SouthWest Suburban Red.
“It’s nice because opponents do see me as a short hitter,” Marotta said. “They think they can hit over or block me. It’s kind of like they don’t know what’s coming.”
Central (18-13, 7-1) stayed in the race for the Red title with the win, keeping pace with Lincoln-Way East and North. Also contributing for the Knights were Sean Blackwood (10 kills), Alex Severson (7 kills), Austin Overby (7 kills), Connor Thorp (13 assists) and Matt Dugan (15 assists).
“I would hate to try to guess what we’re going to do (offensively),” Central coach Joann Holverson said. “In terms of consistency, the hot hitter varies. We don’t have a player teams can key on. They’re all go-to hitters, but that’s me.”
Surviving a back-and-forth battle with Andrew, the Knights held the slimmest of leads at 20-19 in the third game after a Jake Bednarczyk kill for the Thunderbolts.
Marotta slammed home his 10th kill of the match in response, with Blackwood following on the next possession with his 10th.
The mini-run was all the Knights needed as they closed out the win with an Andrew service error.
“We were just trying to play together,” Marotta said. “We had trouble with that in the beginning of the season, but now we’re unified, talking and communicating with each other.”
Andrew fell to 16-15-1, 5-3. Bednarczyk led the team with nine kills and four digs, to go with contributions from Bobby Renaud (7 kills, 4 digs), Tyler Cosme (9 kills, 4 blocks), James Boyce (34 assists) and Paul Bilanzic (7 kills).
“We’ve been in a lot of those situations (late),” Andrew coach Troy Hari said. “It was just a little bit of miscommunication breakdown. That’s all a game need, going up and down, back and forth. Our half of the conference is just so tough.”
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