Talented Warriors Make Quick Work of Geneva Spikers

This one really shouldn’t have surprised too many folks.

won the Upstate Eight Conference last year and pretty much welcomed the entire team back in 2011. Geneva, meanwhile, is in its first year of boys volleyball and Tuesday’s match in Aurora was the program’s second varsity match ever.

So when the host Warriors drubbed the Vikings 25-8, 25-5 the result was pretty much expected. Even so, the 7-1 Warriors showcased some stellar serving and crisp overall play in sweeping Geneva (0-2).

“We just wanted to come out and execute today and do our finest,” said Waubonsie Valley coach Alan Lagger, whose team won the Silver Division crown at last weekend’s Marist invitational. “We were not worrying about what was on the other side of the net, just to follow through and try and work on what we do best.”

One of the things the Warriors clearly did best on Tuesday was serve. Jordan James and T.P Parker each rifled off 10 aces in the match and sophomore setter Luke Furman added 9 aces against Geneva.

Some tough early serves from Parker and James and a trio of kills by 6-foot-8 senior Will Gautschi helped the Warriors jump ahead 17-4 in the opener.

“Our serving was great today,” said Lagger. “Our jump servers got pretty much everything in.”

Fittingly Game 1 ended on an ace from Furman, who was all-conference last spring as a freshman. Furman also had 14 assists in the match with teammate Mike Simmons adding 9 assists.

“We definitely wanted to limit our mistakes,” Furman said. “It went really smooth for us today.”

Game 2 saw the hosts storm ahead 9-1 behind some strong serving by Parker and some hitting errors by the young Vikings. A kill by Graham Bringham upped the margin to 14-4 and then the dominant Warriors closed out the game and the match with an 11-1 run.

Geneva coach K.C. Johnsen expects his new program to continue to improve, but he was impressed with just how big and good the Warriors were. “We knew that coming in it would be a little bit of a learning experience and they gave us a good one,” he said. “They’ve been doing this a while and it shows. They’re a big strong volleyball team.”