The ending makes up for it

Benet's Brianne Hucek, left, and Jessica Jendryk go up for the block Saturday during their team's state championship match against St. Charles East in Normal. The Redwings lost but their second-place finish was the highest for any girls team in any sport at the school.
Jonathan Miano / Staff photographer

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They won the first game when Wheaton Warrenville South missed a serve and won the match when a harmless offering from outside hitter Joe Thomas found an empty spot on the court. The Redhawks, however, will live with anticlimactic finishes when the result is a three-game win over the defending state champion.

Matt Yanz had eight kills and six blocks to lead Naperville Central to a 25-23, 20-25, 25-23 victory over visiting WW South on Thursday night.

The win keeps the Redhawks (15-2) in first place in the DuPage Valley Conference at 5-1. Glenbard East, which hosts Central on Tuesday, and Naperville North, which gave Central its lone DVC loss, both won Thursday to keep pace with the Redhawks.

"Our conference is one of the toughest in the state," Central coach Bryan Johnwick said. "Tuesday we play against Glenbard East. There's really no rest in our conference. You know, we're always playing top-caliber teams. So I think this will help us down the road. These kind of big wins against top teams just build up the confidence and just let the kids know they can do it. They can win these big matches."

WW South coach Bill Schreier said his team is still looking for consistency. Second in the current Chicago Sun-Times rankings, the Tigers (12-4, 4-2) have taken their lumps in defense of their program's fourth state championship.

"Unlike last year where we were kind of under the radar, we've got a huge bull's-eye, probably on our front and our back," Schreier said. "Everyone is going to come and give us their best game, and we need to realize that, and not just talk at it, but actually meet what they're doing. At points and times tonight, I thought we did that, but at points and times I thought we didn't."

Finding consistency was a struggle for both teams Thursday. For every big hit that Eric Hardek (14 kills) or Neill Nystrom (14 kills) produced for the Tigers, there was a serve into the net, like the one that handed Central the final point in Game 1.

For all the momentum created with winning the first game, Central threw it away in Game 2 with poor passing, which resulted in breakdowns.

"The second game, we thought we had them and I think we kind of slacked off a little bit and they kind of took advantage of us on that," said Central senior Matt Schmitz (six kills). "In the third game we just wanted to get a big lead at the beginning and then just hold them off. And once we got around 20, we just knew we had to get to 25 and we just pushed as hard as we could and eventually we got there."

While the Redhawks had their shaky moments, Central did find consistent production from middle hitter Mike Brdicka. The 6-foot-6-inch senior had six kills and five blocks. Outside hitter Dan Dierking, who struggled with his serve throughout the night, was effective at the net with eight kills. Victor Lei had 27 assists.

It may be too early in the season to claim milestone victories, but this win over WW South could be important for playoff seeding. The swagger the Redhawks brought into last week's match with North, which was somewhat diminished with the loss to their archrival, seems to be back.

"This was a big win for us for seeding," Schmitz said. "Now we can say we're better than them and we'll be seeded higher than them."

  sfuchs@scn1.com nbsp;