It's all over now
Redhawks finally end 14-match losing streak to rival Huskies
WHEATON -- When Matt Yanz slammed home the final point of a three-game victory on Saturday evening, the Naperville Central Redhawks erupted into a celebration not usually reserved for winning a fifth-place game. The excess running, screaming and fist-pumping was certainly understandable, considering the opponent.
The 19-25, 26-24, 25-20 win was Central's first over Naperville North in almost six years, breaking a 14-match losing streak to the Huskies. Beating North was also a salve for the Redhawks, who lost for the first time this season on Saturday morning in the gold bracket quarterfinals of the Tiger Classic.
Danielle Gardner / Staff photographer
The following are the final team standings in the gold bracket of the Tiger Classic on Saturday at Wheaton Warrenville High School:
Team standings
1. WW South
2. Glenbrook North
3. Sandburg
4. Buffalo Grove
5. Naperville Central
6. Naperville North
7. New Trier
8. Lincoln-Way Central
Note: Waubonsie Valley finished seventh in the silver bracket.
"This is the team I'm used to seeing," Central coach Bryan Johnwick said. "We've had some ups and downs in this tournament. It's really nice to kind of finish on a high note, especially against Naperville North."
The last time Central beat North was in the 2002 sectional final. That victory catapulted Central to its last state finals appearance. The streak included matches in tournaments as well as DuPage Valley Conference and postseason play.
"It's just amazing," said Yanz, who had 10 kills against North and was named to the all-tournament team. "We haven't beat them in 14 games, so many years. Finally being able to take them out, you can't explain the feeling."
Wheaton Warrenville South rallied to beat Glenbrook North in three games to capture the tournament championship, making the host Tigers the first team to win the prestigious tournament twice in its six-year history.
All three Naperville-area teams lost their quarterfinal matches. Central, ranked second in the current Chicago Sun-Times ranking, fell to No. 8 Sandburg, No. 5 North lost to Buffalo Grove for the second weekend in a row and Waubonsie Valley lost in three games to DeSmet Jesuit (Missouri), a team that reached its own state semifinals the past two years.
The Warriors placed seventh in the silver bracket, finishing the tournament with a 25-12, 30-32, 25-22 win over Lake Park.
The Redhawks (10-1) opened the Tiger Classic with a three-game win over Marist on Thursday and needed another one to reach the fifth-place game. With North, which had already advanced with a two-game win over New Trier, watching and waiting for an opponent, Central won the final two games against Lincoln-Way Central.
"When we're playing good teams, we have a tendency to start slow," Johnwick said. "Luckily enough, we usually pull out these three-games matches and we win. I kind of stressed with our team we can't come into a match kind of with no intensity. We need to come out ready to play right away. Hopefully we can turn this around."
North (7-4) does have powerful hitting on the outside with all-tournament selection Jon Bunge (18 kills) and Mike Henry (11 kills), but the Huskies don't get much from the middle on offense or defense.
"We have to block," North coach Roger Strausberger said. "We had one block in the whole match, all three games. You can't win in boys volleyball if you can't block."
While the Huskies struggled to get offense from other sources, the Redhawks produced left, right and especially center. In addition to the 11 kills from Yanz, fellow middle hitter Mike Brdicka had six kills.
Outside hitters Dan Dierking (12 kills) and Joe Thomas (seven kills) made it difficult for North to cheat towards the middle, and setter Victor Lei distributed the ball well enough to record 30 assists.
"Everyone on the team was just going crazy," Yanz said. "If we got a block, everybody got together. We just got excited."
Dierking gave the Redhawks the lead for good at 18-17 in Game 3 with one of his dozen kills and Central started to believe that the losing streak was finally going to end.
"The closer we got, every point we got, we knew that we were going to beat them," Dierking said. "We got pumped up. We just wanted it so bad."
The winning streak against Central ended and with the momentum of last week's championship at Buffalo Grove muffled with two losses on Saturday, it may be time for North to regroup. A rematch with the Redhawks loom in DVC play on April 8 at Central.
"That was one of their goals this year, obviously, was to beat us," Strausberger said. "Johnwick, he knows the history of the program. The boys were well aware that we were on a 14-game winning streak, and so that was their goal this year. If anything else, beat us. If the rest of the year went bad and they beat us, they would have been fine. I'm sure they'd be fine with it."
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