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Sports

Boys Volleyball: North Advances To State Semifinals

Naperville North 2, Oak Park-River Forest 1. The Huskies avenge a previous loss for the fourth straight game; stand two wins from their second state championship.

HOFFMAN ESTATES – ’s boys volleyball team has decided its 2011 Redemption Tour deserves two more performances.

For the fourth straight match in the postseason, the Huskies avenged a loss from earlier in the season in Friday’s state quarterfinals at Hoffman Estates.

This time, the victim was Oak Park-River Forest, and North handed their Huskies counterparts a 25-17, 23-25, 25-19 defeat Friday afternoon.

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Naperville North, whose lone boys volleyball state title came in 1997, will play Vernon Hills, who dominated Edwardsville on Friday, in the semifinals at 10 a.m. Saturday. The winner will move on to the 5:15 p.m. state championship match, with the losing team playing for third place at 4 p.m.

“I think we were a little nervous, but I don’t think we played nervous,” North senior Shane Witmer said. “We have nothing else to prove, besides to ourselves. We weren’t expected to be here. We thought we’d be here, but no one expected us to go this far, so it’s almost like we have nothing to lose.”

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The win for North (23-7) came after Tuesday’s stunning win over Wheaton Warrenville South, a team that beat North twice in the regular season, in the supersectional. Wins over two other teams that had previously beaten North—Downers Grove North and Downers Grove South—preceded that.

The missing ingredient from all of those previous losses, however, is 6-foot, 6-inch junior Spencer Sauter. He was injured until late in the season, and since his return, he’s complimented Witmer on the outside and turned the Huskies into a far more dominant team. They haven’t lost since he came back. He still trailed Witmer for the team lead in kills Friday (16 to 11), but his presence was undeniable.

“I think it takes pressure off of Shane and (Henry) Cheatham, too,” North coach Nate Bornancin said. “Now that Spencer is back, we have three options at all times.”

After dominating the first set Friday, the Huskies committed 12 errors in the second to keep OPRF (27-13) alive and force a third set. OPRF then jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the third, which prompted Bornancin to call a timeout and turn things around.

“We came out flat,” Bornancin said. “I know we won Game 1, but we weren’t really playing the way we had been the last couple matches. That really came through toward the end of the third game, so I think we’re ready for tomorrow.”

North finally took the lead for good on a service error, the first kill of the season from libero Danny Boryca (who also led the team with 17 digs), another OPRF error and an ace from Steve Massoni (who added 39 assists), making the score 15-12 in the third.

It’s North’s first trip to state since a runner-up finish in 2006, so the atmosphere was foreign to the team and the coaches. But playing the first game of the entire tournament seemed to relax the Huskies.

“I think it was good having to play the first match of the day, having to come back in the third game,” Witmer said. “I thought we showed resilience coming back from down 5-1.”

The other semifinal will pit Glenbard West against the one team that North hasn’t avenged a loss to yet—Sandburg.

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