Warren High School boys’ volleyball coach Yun Chen has been around long enough to know that March is too early to know what kind of team he is going to have for the postseason in late May.
So when the Blue Devils went 0-4 Saturdayin the Buffalo Grove tournament one year after finishing second in the state, the 11th-year coach is not going into panic mode. Still, he knows there is a lot of work to do with this group.
Chen’s team opened the tournament with a tight 25-27 loss Chicago’s Lake View and then rolled in the second set, 25-18. But then things went south quickly. The Blue Devils lost the final set 15-10 and then dropped two-set matches to Hersey, Evanston and eventual tournament champion, Glenbard East.
“We knew this was going to be a tough tournament and we were trying to find an identity here,” Chen said afterwards. “I was looking at different lineups and we used about four or five different lineups on the day. I don’t really have a set lineup yet.”
Chen pointed out that last year’s team had some ups and downs early, including a 10th-place finish in the Brother Rice Smack attack in April. But the Blue Devils, who had 13 regular season losses before putting things together and going on a wild postseason run that led to the state championship match for the first time in school history. The team won the first set 25-22, but dropped the final two sets 26-24, 25-19 and finished 28-14.
Junior outside hitter Zachary Schultz, who had three kills in that match, is back, along with senior libero Ruben Torres. After that, there is not a lot of varsity experience to speak of.
Others on the roster are seniors Bernard Crowley, Logan Capizzi, Nathan Kelch, Carter Wood, Anthony Amrozowicz and Tyler Barnett plus juniors Aaron Wagan, Melwin Rajan, Asif Huq, Jacob White, Parker Main and sophomores Jaxon Bongratz and Daniel Johnson.
“We’re going to work together to find themselves,” the coach said. “We will be looking for some of the leaders and see who can get through some of the struggles we had. This was a great tournament for us to learn some of those things. We played a little better in our last match and cut down on our errors. It’s going to be a learning curve. Last year, we really picked it up at the end.”
It was a rough tournament for other Lake County squads as well. Grant also went 0-4 in pool play and Lake Zurich went 1-3 with its only victory coming over Grant, 19-25, 25-18, 15-13.
