Boys Volleyball: Hornets Rally To Beat York

ELMHURST – In what has been an up-and-down season with a young team, boys volleyball team is used to climbing out of a hole.

The Hornets found themselves in that familiar predicament in Thursday’s West Suburban Conference crossover match at York. After pulling out the first set, 25-23, Hinsdale South started the second in a 9-1 hole. But the Hornets were able to regroup and roar back for a 25-22 win to move to 12-10 on the season.

“That’s what we’ve been trying to fight all year long,” Hinsdale South coach Billson Rasavongxay said. “I know we’re confident enough to fight back. It’s just too bad that we have to keep putting ourselves in that situation.

"They showed it numerous times through the season that they could do it. Once we start eliminating some of those mistakes, we’ll be a better team.”

It wasn’t errors as much as a strong attack from York (6-12) that started off the second set. Five of the points came on the Dukes’ attack and another on an ace to build the 9-1 lead that forced Rasavongxay to call a timeout.

The Hornets stuck around andit was York that started to melt down with mistakes. Five straight Dukes errors and an ace from libero Liam Miller helped the Hornets tie the set 13-13 and get back into it.

“We seem to be doing that a lot this year,” Hinsdale South senior Ray Riordan said of falling behind. “That’s been the majority of our struggles this year. That’s kind of the way we’ve been playing all year. But we came together and fought and I thought it was a pretty nice win for us.”

Neither team held a lead larger than two points until the final margin as the teams exchanged blows. After York tied it at 21-21 on a Chris Seudder kill, the Hornets were able to finally get some separation. Riordan came up with three big kills to force sideouts down the stretch and his block that gave Hinsdale South a 24-22 lead was crucial. A kill from Brandon DeClouette clinched the win.

“We practice situations like that a lot,” Riordan said. “We’ve been in a lot of situations like that this year. I feel that we did what we always do in practice. We were ready for the situation and we showed ourselves that we could do it.”

York jumped to a 14-9 lead in the first game as well. The Hornets trailed, 23-21, before coming back. Consecutive York errors followed by kills from Manny Gutierrez and Eric Kluge gave the Hinsdale South the win.

The win came on the heels of Wednesday’s tough, three-set loss to Metea Valley, a first-year varsity program.

“We just couldn’t stop making errors,” Rasavongxay said. “I think that’s kind of been the story of the season. We make a ton of errors but we get out of it pretty quickly.

"If we can eliminate some of our errors, I think we can compete with some of the better teams.”