Underdog Central battles back to defeat North

Updated: May 10, 2011 9:54PM

The Naperville Central boys volleyball team must have gone to finishing school.

The host Redhawks, who have had trouble closing out matches all year, came from behind late in both games to pull an upset over crosstown and DuPage Valley Conference rival Naperville North 25-23, 28-26.

“We were definitely the underdog tonight,” said Naperville Central Albert Lei. “They’re near the top of the league and we’re way down there somewhere. But we really started swinging and won the match. It was a big confidence boost for us.”

The Redhawks (13-18, 3-8) went into their familiar pattern of committing too many errors early in both games.

They found themselves looking up at the Huskies (21-11, 10-4) 20-16 in Game 1 and 22-17 in Game 2.

And twice the Redhawks kept their composure when the pressure was on and sealed the deal.

“That’s a team that works hard, they’re well-coached and they wanted it more than us,” said Naperville North coach Nate Bornancin.

Bornancin was forced to hold out many of his senior starters in Game 1 because they violated team rules by leaving a tournament early last Saturday in order to go to prom.

But the Huskies were able to build up a lead without those seniors as junior hitter Spencer Sauter and setter Matt Thornton, who was called up from the JV team, were outstanding.

After the Redhawks trailed 20-16 they got some big offensive plays from freshman Jon Chiczewski (five kills), Joe Frantik (a kill and a block) and Sarvesh Somisetty (one kill) to finish strong.

Game 2 was a different story because all the Huskies starters were back on the floor.

And they looked confident as they built up that 22-17 lead.

Then coach Jeff Danbom called time out to talk it over with his troops.

“We just reminded our guys that when the game is on the line they can fight through it,” Danbom said. “We talked about how we needed a good pass to sideout and we had to play good defense, in order to help us run transition.”

The Redhawks escaped game-point, tying it at 24-24 on a kill by Lei and an ace by Zach Madsen.

And then kills by Somisetty and Chiczewsk and a couple of Huskies errors took the Redhawks home.

“We wanted to beat them and we just started swinging instead of just tipping the ball,” said Lei. “And it worked out for us.”

“Naperville North is a good team,” said Danbom. “But it’s good to play well and finish against the other school here in Naperville. We’ll take it.”

Madsen had eight kills and Somisetty and Chiczewski had seven each in the balanced Central attack. Nirmal Desai led with 12 digs and Sean Harrington with 17 assists and Lei with 13 were effective quarterbacks.

For the Huskies Sauter was high man with eight kills, Thornton had 20 assists and Danny Boryca was the dig leader with six.

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