Huskies finally down Neuqua Valley

Updated: March 28, 2011 9:38AM

This one was personal.

Naperville North coach Nate Bornancin had never beaten Neuqua Valley. Nor had senior outside hitter Shane Witmer and his classmates. Last year's 29-27 loss in the third game at Neuqua still evokes bitter memories.

"This was more personal," Witmer said. "We wanted to come and get our business done. We have a lot of seniors who really wanted to win this one."

Witmer finally made a winner of his senior teammates and his coach, connecting on back-to-back aces in the second gameto ignite a 9-2 run and propel the No. 5-ranked Huskies to a 25-22, 25-22 victory over the visiting Wildcats.

Naperville North (1-0) trailed 16-11 in Game 2 when Witmer took over. But the Ball State-bound senior credited 5-foot-8 libero Danny Boryca for keeping the Huskies in the game mentally and emotionally after they fell behind 10-4 in Game 2.

"(Danny) Boryca is our motivator," Witmer said. "He kept telling the guys to settle down, to stay calm."

Boryca finished with nine digs, none bigger than the one that kept the Huskies alive during a long rally that culminated in Henry Cheatham's kill which gave the hosts a 23-22 lead.

"Cheatham stepped up tonight," Bornancin said. "The guys kept their composure the whole match, and they finished."

Witmer led Naperville North with nine kills, Adam Souhrada had seven kills filling in for the injured Spencer Sauter (right elbow) and Cheatham added six. Steve Massoni had nine assists and an ace in Game 1 and John Gorey had eight assists in Game 2.

Jon Storm led No. 7 Neuqua Valley (1-1) with 13 kills, but no one else had more than three. Drew Antenen, filling in for injured setter Alex Blackwell (sprained ankle), had 18 assists, a block, a kill and an ace.

"One of the things we talked about was setting our middles more," Neuqua Valley coach Erich Mendoza said. "But we couldn't. Part of that was our serve-receive and part of it was that our passing wasn't there.

"We didn't pass well," the coach added. "Drew had to come out past the 10-foot line. It wasn't by design that we set Jon that much. Our passes were too far off."

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.