Evergreen Park made its debut in varsity boys volleyball on March 26 and if first impressions count, it’s going to be a wild ride.
The Mustangs, who have a roster with five juniors, three sophomores and four freshmen, dropped a 25-19, 33-35, 25-19 nonconference battle with visiting Mount Carmel.
About that second set …
According to the IHSA record book, Evergreen Park tied five other teams for fourth place for most points in a set with 35.
To make that set even crazier was that the Mustangs were down 24-19 before Fionn Doherty stepped up to the serving line. He hung out there for a while as the Mustangs scored six straight to take a 25-24 lead.
“It was scary,” Doherty said. “My heart was racing that whole time I was serving.”
Mustangs coach Brian Zofke said he was proud of the team’s resiliency in that set and that he expects good things this year.
“We have a really tough schedule early on,” he said. “That was on purpose, to get us ready to be competitive in conference,” he said. “This is a great building block against a program that has been around for 30 years.”
The Mustangs played as a JV team last year to get ready for this season.
“This was a good way to introduce our team to varsity volleyball,” Doherty said of the Mount Carmel match. “We did some good things last year on the junior varsity level and want to do even better this year.”
The Mustangs dropped a two-set match to powerhouse Brother Rice on March 27. They played in the Joliet West Tournament and suffered losses to Minooka, Edwardsville and Wheaton North before pulling off their first wins in program history on March 29 — 25-14, 25-18 over Illinois Math and Science and 25-21, 25-19 over Von Steuben.
Doherty had 31 kills, Michael Bruno 68 assists and Quinn Carlson 39 digs in the tournament.
Shepard’s state champ
Shepard track and field standout Kyra Motley won two events at the Illinois Top Times Championships on March 29. The meet is considered the unofficial indoor state final.
Motley took first in the Class 3A long jump at 5.87 meters (19-3.25) and in the Class 3A 60-meter hurdles with a personal best of 8.83 seconds.
Nazareth news
Nazareth’s baseball team had its first perfect game in 14 years when Mac McGarry beat Romeoville 11-0 in five innings. He struck out six in the win.
The next day the Roadrunners visited Limestone — the high school MLB Hall of Famer Jim Thome attended.
Thome is an assistant coach for the Roadrunners and his son, Landon, belted two home runs in a 6-4 Nazareth victory. Landon is a junior who is committed to Tennessee.
Moving up
Lewis women’s basketball coach Keisha Newell, who formerly led the Mother McAuley program, is leaving the Flyers to coach at Division I Oakland University.
She was 69-22 in three years at Lewis. Before she coached at Lewis she had a 41-23 record for Mother McAuley from 2019-2022.