Before entering high school, Marist’s Michael Forbes experimented with many different sports.
When asked about it, he easily went through the long list.
“I played everything,” Forbes said. “I played basketball. I swam. I ran. I did a little bit of football.”
But volleyball? He didn’t try that until freshman year when all other sports fell by the wayside.
“I jumped with into it and a couple of my buddies said, ‘Let’s go, we’re playing volleyball,'” Forbes said of teammates Billy Bochenczak and Drew Fielder. “I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ Now I love it.”
Forbes spread the love Friday afternoon in the state quarterfinals at Bolingbrook. The junior middle hitter finished with six kills, helping the RedHawks reach the semifinals for the third year in a row with a 25-22, 25-19 win over Lane Tech.
Ball State recruit Briggs Corona led defending state champion Marist (30-7) with 10 kills, while freshman right-side hitter Max DeHoyos added five kills and Fiedler handed out 20 assists.
Mohamed Abdelradi tallied eight kills for Lane Tech (27-14). Carver Forsman contributed six kills, but Marist moved on to face Oak Park-River Forest (32-5-1) at 11 a.m. Saturday in the semifinals.
So, what actually made Forbes drop all of the other sports and stick with volleyball?
“Volleyball is addicting,” Forbes said. “I love the pace. There are six guys on the court. Two opposing teams. Noncontact. It’s a whole different thing.”
Speaking of a whole different thing, the makeup of this team for Marist is a radical departure from the past two that brought home state championship trophies.
When Forbes started playing volleyball as a freshman, he confirmed that he had no idea he would be playing in the state finals.
However, he was confident that the inexperienced RedHawks would get this far at the beginning of the season despite going through a rough first practice.
“It was rocky,” Forbes said. “We just weren’t connecting like we are right now. The first day, we had a bunch of new guys who didn’t know each other. We just needed to get connected.”
But now, Marist coach Jordan Vidovic is aiming for his fifth straight state championship for both the boys and girls volleyball programs.
While there are those who think Oak Park-River Forest and Glenbard West are primed to face off in Saturday’s state championship match, Vidovic is pleased with the RedHawks reaching the Final Four, especially since few people predicted they would get this far.
“We didn’t forget what the last two teams did every single day,” Vidovic said. “They embraced it. They learned a little bit and learned to play with each other.
“That stuff doesn’t go away in our program.”
On paper, Fiedler confirmed that it didn’t look as promising to those outside the program. That didn’t deter the RedHawks, though.
“We lost 10 seniors, but we knew what we could do,” he said.
The 6-foot-2 Forbes entered the state quarterfinals with 305 kills, 87 blocks, 151 digs and 25 aces. The undersized middle was named Illinois Volleyball Coaches Association first team all-state in just his third playing the sport.
Corona made the second team and Fiedler made the third team.
“It’s awesome,” Forbes said. “It was a great way to pump me up pre-state. I was surprised.”
The future, meanwhile, is going to be scary for Marist’s opponents. Still, the RedHawks are just worried about the present. A lot of underclassmen will be back, making them favorites once again.
For now, they are the underdogs and ready to prove people wrong.
“We all understand that people doubt us,” Forbes said. “But we just put our heads down and put in our work. We just go out there and do out thing.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
