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Vernon Hills wastes no time in win
Updated: June 3, 2011 9:54PM
Edwardsville’s first trip to the boys volleyball state tournament lasted about 35 minutes. Vernon Hills is hoping it’s first trip does not end until late Saturday night.
Thomas Robinson had seven kills, Martin Niemczewski added six kills, and setter Justin Opitz added 14 assists and two aces to lead Vernon Hills to an easy 25-11, 25-18 quarterfinal victory over Edwardsville Friday at Hoffman Estates.
Edwardsville’s tournament debut marked the first time a team from outside the Chicago area qualified for the state tournament. But the Tigers were no strangers to Vernon Hills.
“We had a pretty good look at them on tape,” Vernon Hills coach Chris Curry said. “I have some buddies in southern Illinois who were convinced to provide us with a scouting report. They didn’t surprise us with anything different.
“We got some blocks against them,” the coach added. “We put a little pressure on them with our serve and made it predictable where they were going so we could set our defense with the block. I think it kind of worked out.”
Vernon Hills (36-4) built leads of 10-4 and 14-6 in Game 1 and might have taken its own crowd out of the game, Curry said.
“I didn’t know what to expect, how crazy it would be and how excited everybody would be,” he said. “But because we got a big lead, it may not have been as exciting for the fans or for us in terms of coaching strategy.
“But I think I looked at the floor and saw a team that went. ‘OK, we can do this.’” he said.
The big test will be if Vernon Hills can do it again in the semifinals.
“It’s nice to get there, but we still have our eyes on a bigger prize,” Vernon Hills’ libero David Swanson said. “Now that we’re here, we want to compete. We want to see what we can do.”
Eric Fitterer, a 6-8 outside hitter committed to Lewis University, led Edwardsville (25-2) with five kills but none in Game 2.
“I think we knew that we may be somewhat the underdogs coming from southern Illinois, not being a Chicago team and not playing the high level Chicago teams all year,” Edwardsville coach Andy Bersett said. “We came out, we made some errors and we just couldn’t recover well enough.”
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