Boys Volleyball: Downers South dominates Willowbrook

Updated: April 17, 2012 10:47PM

Jacob Schmiegelt attracts a lot of attention from everybody on Willowbrook’s schedule. Sometimes, the Warriors and their powerful 6-6 outside hitter can overcome the two and three defenders he faces at the net. Sometimes, like Tuesday, they can’t.

Schmiegelt had seven kills, a block and an ace Tuesday at Downers Grove South, but the Warriors were still no match for the host Mustangs, who got seven kills from Andy Kryk, four kills each from Greg Gallo and Nick Timreck and combined for eight blocks in a 25-12, 25-21 West Suburban Gold victory.

The loss dropped Willowbrook to 7-4 overall and 1-1 in the Gold division, a half-game behind Downers South (13-5, 2-1) in the league standings. But it also showed the Warriors they still have a hill to climb to get on an even footing with Downers South.

“I grew up and played in this conference back in the day and Downers South has always been the team,” first-year Willowbrook coach Ryan Bazon said. “We walked in having a pretty good season, but we’re not going to let one loss put us down.

“We’ll go back to drawing board,” he added. “They showed us some of our weaknesses and stuff we have to work on. We have a big goal ahead of us and we’re not going to let it get us down. They’re just a fantastic team.”

After the Warriors dropped the first game decisively, a kill by Schmiegelt capped a 3-0 run by the visitors that tied Game 2 at 17-all. His final kill of the match pulled the Warriors within 20-19, but a block by Austin Adank at match point ended any thoughts of a comeback.

“We came into this game with the wrong mindset,” Schmiegelt said. “We came in cocky, thinking we could do it easy. It was unlike other games when we came in with the right mindset. If we came in more prepared instead of thinking, ‘Hey, we’re just going to beat them,” it would have been better for us.”

Jake Bles and Jimmy Riordan each had three kills for Willowbrook, which will try to regroup against York Thursday before participating in the Downers South tournament over the weekend.

“It’s been a little frustrating (facing all the attention every match),” Schmiegelt said. “It’s been hard to keep my cool. I got to work on it. We have to go back to practice and work on our defense because it was very poor this game.

“We plan to come back against York, play a solid game, and prepare to play in the tournament this weekend,” he added.

© 2013 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.