Boys Volleyball: New-look Lyons stuns Downers North

Updated: April 10, 2012 9:21PM

Lyons coach Joann Pyritz said she will keep trying different lineups until she finds something that works.

She might have hit paydirt Tuesday.

Six-foot-6 senior Jason Dolinski had six kills and John Peterson added 10 assists and two aces as Lyons stunned No. 7 Downers Grove North 25-19, 25-20 Tuesday in a West Suburban Silver division meeting in Downers Grove.

Lyons, which was coming off a 25-16, 25-15 loss to Willowbrook on Monday, jumped out to leads of 17-9 in Game 1 and 10-3 in Game 2 and was never threatened.

“We made a lineup change since Willowbrook,” Dolinski said. “We think it worked out really well. We got more seniors in play. That helped a lot. I moved over to outside and we got (6-4 middle) Andrew Rowley and (6-3 middle) Daniel Dorsano both playing together, so that helped.

“We really like this lineup,” he added. “We’re going to talk to coach and tell her this is really what we like and keep it going from here.”

Lyons coach Joann Pyritz also liked what she saw Tuesday, but cautioned that nothing is etched in stone.

“I know (Dolinski) likes to hit outside, but we reserve the right to be flexible where we put him,” she said. “We want to target the weak areas of opposing teams. I want him to be able to be successful, and if they key in on him out there at the antenna, then we need to move him to the middle.

“Of course, what he does for us depends a lot on passing, too,” she said. “We’re a little more forgiving on our pass when he’s outside. This was also the first time he played all the way around. We wanted to see how he did. We needed his attack possibility in the back row and think he did a nice job.”

Rowley and Dorsano combined for five kills and Marko Kostich added three aces for Lyons (6-3, 2-0), which is probably not done experimenting with a lineup.

“Willowbrook had a good team,” Pyritz said. “They played soundly, had some nice all-around players. I don’t think we played our best match. We had some issues. As a result, we continue to make lineup changes. This is one of many lineups we’ve had.

“We’ll keep changing it around and hopefully one day we’ll figure out exactly what that lineup will be,” she added. “Certainly, Dolinski plays a huge role in what we decide to do.”

Downers North’s lineup was in flux Tuesday as well. The Trojans were missing 6-foot-7 middle hitter JP Tulacka, who injured an ankle in practice Monday and could miss the rest of the week, and 6-5 senior middle Zack Koester (illness).

But Downers North coach Mark Wasik said it likely would not have mattered.

“It didn’t help that we didn’t have that middle, but that had no reflection on the low quality of volleyball that was being played out there,” he said. “It was bad. It was just bad volleyball. Nobody did anything consistently well.

“Everybody looked to each other and the guys got stuck on their mistakes,” he added. “You get a couple of guys trying to pick people up and let go of things, now you’re draining from their responsibilities because you’re not letting go of your mistakes.”

Paul Novosyolov had five kills and Zach Parik had 13 assists, two kills and two blocks for Downers North (5-1, 1-1).

“I do feel Lyons came out of a tournament and played faster than we did,” Wasik said. “They were a little more game-ready than we were at this point and it showed. We’ve been off for a while. We did play Morton last Thursday, but even then we played in the negative. We had more mistakes than positives.

“Hopefully, this will be a good thing to learn from.’’

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