Boys Volleyball: WW South cruises in showdown with Glenbard East

Updated: April 19, 2012 8:52PM

Glenbard East could see Wheaton Warrenville South again as soon as Saturday in the finals of the Downers Grove South tournament.

Then again, who would really want to see WW South again?

Tim Zyburt had nine kills and three blocks, Thomas Jaeschke had seven kills and Kit Bruzek added 21 assists as No. 1 WW South used three timely runs to defeat the host Rams 25-17, 25-16 Thursday in Lombard.

The win left WW South (17-0 overall) alone atop the DuPage Valley Conference at 6-0, while No. 2 Glenbard East fell to 14-3 overall and 5-1 in the league.

“We knew Glenbard East is a good team,” said Zyburt, whose kill capped a 7-2 run to end Game 1 and who had back-to-back kills as part of a 6-0 run that broke open Game 2. “We knew we had to come out with our best game, and that’s what we did.

“We had a lot of fun playing out there,” he added. “Everybody was contributing, even our bench was up and at them. It was fun to see. They’re a great team and have a lot of talent. We just came out to play. We knew we weren’t coming out of here with a loss. We were doing everything we could.”

WW South took advantage of six Glenbard East errors to open a 9-4 lead in Game 1. The Rams got within 19-16 on a kill by 6-foot-5 junior Joe Farrell, but a dump kill by Bruzek gave the Tigers some breathing room.

“I thought we got off to a great start,” WW South coach Bill Schreier said. “That’s something we talked about yesterday in practice…being able to push. We did a great job in Game 1 and did a good job at end of Game 2.

“They showed they’re a good team, Glenbard East,” he added. “They went back-and-forth with us. However, we’re always hoping we can make that run. We did it twice in Game 1 and once in Game 2. That was the separation in the match.”

Glenbard East was within 13-10 in Game 2 when Farrell split a pair of WW South blockers. But a net violation against the hosts sent Jaeschke to the service line, where he scored six unanswered points before the Rams’ Matt Ploke finally ended the run with a kill.

“They’re a fantastic team,” Glenbard East coach Marci Maier said. “However, I thought at times we played point-for-point. So at times we did some really nice things out on the floor. We were blocking balls, defensively picking up balls, getting some kills ourselves.

“But we have to do that more consistently,” she added. “We have to be able to play sideout ball and match them point-for-point. We let a few runs go, the one at the beginning of the game In Game 1 and then there was a run in Game 2 that took us out of the ballgame.”

Tim Shenkin had five kills and eight assists for Glenbard East, which also got 10 assists from Mike Him and six kills from Ploke. Matt Callaway added four kills for WW South, which also got a kill from 6-5 three-year veteran Matt Nussbaum in his first match back from injury.

“We have one goal in mind,” Zyburt said. “We know we have to do our best. Any team can come out and play well out of nowhere, so it’s just up to us to keep playing well.”

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