Junior middle hitter Brendan McCarthy took matters into his own hands for Brother Rice.
“I was sick of losing,” he said.
The 6-foot-7 McCarthy went to work in the second game Thursday night, pounding down a kill, making a big block for a point and coming up with two more kills.
That erased a 1-0 deficit for a 4-1 lead and gave the Crusaders momentum en route to a 19-25, 25-14, 25-14 win over Providence in a Catholic League crossover match in New Lenox.
On Tuesday, Brother Rice (5-7) lost 16-25, 25-23, 25-23 to St. Ignatius. Losing Game 1 then against Providence (5-6) light a fire inside McCarthy.
After McCarthy’s burst, Brother Rice didn’t miss a beat in the rotation when 6-6 junior middle hitter Michael Bos entered in Game 2.
Bos had four kills to help keep the Crusaders in front 10-6. In all, the two middles had 11 of the Crusaders’ 17 kills in that turnaround game.
“I don’t think Providence was expecting we were going to go to the middles as much as we did,” said assistant coach Hunter Michniak, subbing for coach Dan Dwyer, who had another commitment. “We went to them as much as possible on purpose.
“We knew they were getting the job done. I told my setter, Luke Dwyer, to set them over and over again because they were on fire.”
McCarthy, an Oak Lawn resident who was a two-sport athlete, gave up basketball to concentrate on volleyball. Bos, a Mount Greenwood resident, gave up baseball for volleyball. Both are middles in club for Ultimate.
Brother Rice, meanwhile, wants to get its record on track after a strange day on March 26 set back the Crusaders.
A scheduling snafu meant Brother Rice was overbooked, so Dwyer had to split up his team. Many of the regulars stayed in the area and went 1-1 against Oak Park-River Forest and Pickerington, Ohio, while many of the reserves headed to the second day of a tournament at Vernon Hills and went 0-3.
“I’m not happy with the record, but I’m not sad either,” McCarthy said after the Crusaders beat Providence. “But I hope we can use this win for momentum. We had a lot of energy in this match.”
“We have to limit our errors,” Bos said. “We make some stupid errors, and if we cut those, we should be good from here on out.”
The Crusaders committed 12 errors that led to points for Providence in Game 1.
Brother Rice finished with a 38-20 advantage in kills. Bos had 10 kills, while McCarthy and Joseph Pfeiffer each added nine.
Michniak, who played in high school at Benet, has had quite a coaching career since graduating in 2021 from Ohio State.
In the fall, he was an assistant coach for the Chicago Christian girls volleyball team that took third in the state in Class 2A. He enjoyed the chance to guide the Crusaders to the win as the head coach for a night.
On the flip side, Providence was led by junior outside hitter Adam DeRubertis with 10 kills. Junior right-side hitter Jack Tess had seven.
“This match is a microcosm of our season,” Providence coach Lee Rucinski said. “We have three guys who have played at this level and everyone else still learning how to play varsity. If you watched our first match to now, we wouldn’t have taken a first set off Brother Rice two weeks ago.
“But then the old habits die hard, and we go back very quickly. We need to be a scrappy, energy team. When we stop playing with energy, it gets ugly real fast.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
