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EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville boys volleyball team used a nine-point service streak in the first game by Eric Epenesa and a six-point string in the second by Max Sellers to go on and convincingly defeated Belleville East 25-9, 25-14 in the Southwestern Conference opener for both teams Tuesday night at Lucco-Jackson Gym.
The Tigers jumped out in the first game to take a big lead and never looked back in recording their sixth win in their first seven starts.
“Yes, dominated from the get-go,” Edwardsville head coach Scott Smith said. “It was strong serves; Epenesa’s serves were able to go on a run after we had been going back-and-forth, but we got off to an early run. It all has to do with the serves. Our boys have a very different touch too, a very difficult flow serve, and then there’s Josh Whittenburg that comes back there with a very different looking topspin serve, which is a lot to handle, just when you’re starting to get used to moving around with the flow serve, and how difficult those are to pass. And then, Josh is hammering it down at them.”
Edwardsville is off to a tremendous start, with a third-place finish this past weekend at the Joliet West Tiger Challenge tournament. Smith feels it’s a good sign of things to come as the season goes along.
“Yeah, I mean these young players are very talented, very experienced,” Smith said. “We’re lucky enough that almost all of the boys had the opportunity to play club volleyball in the off-season, so they were only off for two weeks before we started the season, so it’s like they picked up right where they left off last year.”
The Tigers are coming off an appearance last season in the IHSA sectional semifinal, and are hoping to build off the momentum of the appearance. Although it’s still very early in the season, things are already starting to look very promising for Edwardsville.
“This week will be definitive as well,” Smith said. “We have O’Fallon on Thursday, and Belleville East today, being 5-1 coming in, and they’re a strong team. They’re good hitters, and they’re well-coached. It’ll be definitive this week, I can tell you that much.”
And the competition in the Southwestern Conference will be top-notch, as is the nature of the league itself.
“Yep, battling heavy hitter, great defense, great net defense,” Smith said, “and that’s what we’ve tried to establish here in the Southwestern Conference, with all the good coaches in the conference, and all the good players, and all the boys who’ve dedicated themselves to volleyball.”
The two teams opened the first game by trading points, then the Tigers’ John Matthews served three points in a row to help Edwardsville take an 8-3 lead. The Tigers then got the ball back at 9-5, and with Sellers serving, a Whittenburg kill, a violation, and a service ace brought the score to 12-5, forcing the Lancers to call time out and regroup. The teams then traded points before Epenesa got the serve, and then proceeded to reel off nine straight service points, getting spikes from Whittenburg and Daniel Pauk, a pair of Lancer shots that went too long, and a great block from Pauk along the way to make it 22-6 before an Isaiah Hein spike ended the run at 22-7. A Whittenburg spike brought it to 23-7, and after an East point, a Matthews spike brought it to 24-9, and a Whittenburg ace closed out the first game at 25-9.
The two sides traded points again to start the second game before the Tigers began to take charge, with Whittenburg serving up two straight points to make it 5-2. The teams again exchanged points with Edwardsville maintaining a three-point advantage before the Lancers, with Hein serving, cut the lead to 8-7. A serve went straight into the net to make it 9-7 for the Tigers, then Sellers served up six straight points, getting kills from Epenesa and Whittenburg, along with a pair of violations that made it 12-7, with East again calling time, and more mistakes from the Lancers that made it 15-7 before the run ended on a spike from Tyler Schwahn that make it 15-8 for the Tigers. Edwardsville got the ball back on a Whittenburg spike, and Brock Hennig served at 17-9 and got two service points to bring the score to 19-9 before the Lancers scored twice to make it 19-11. Henry Hupp then got the ball at 22-14, and served out the match, with an Epenesa block making the final score 25-14, giving the match to the Tigers 2-0.
Whittenburg had six kills for the Tigers, while Epenesa had three blocks, Hennig had 13 assists, Matthews four digs, and both Epenesa and Sellers with nine service points each to lead the Tigers statistically.
Edwardsville is now 6-1 on the year, and travels to O’Fallon for a key conference match on Thursday, with the start time at 4:30 p.m. The schedule isn’t getting any easier for the Tigers, but Smith will have his team ready to play.
“We’ve got a lot of tough games coming up, especially with O’Fallon,” Smith said. “We’re going to meet Belleville East again, then we have the Vianney Tournament this year, and also the Lincoln-Way West Tournament again, so those are going to be something that continuously difficult and challenging for us to do, just like this last weekend was. We saw a lot of good teams, and we saw a lot of great players, and we were able to hunker down and still be successful with them. Just really proud of the boys, and they continue to impress me.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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