Teddy Wynard

JV Wolves’ dominant offense secures 2-0 win over Plainfield South

Leaping through the air, junior outside hitter Andrew Koutsogiannis attacks the ball. The Wolves beat the Plainfield South Cougars Thursday night in two sets with scores of 25-20 and 25-17. “It takes a bit to get warmed up, but after you get that first [hit], you have the confidence to go do this,” Koutsogiannis said. Photo by Teddy Wynard.

Get out the brooms. East’s JV boys’ volleyball team completed their sweep over the Plainfield South Cougars in two sets with scores of 25-20 and 25-17 at home Thursday night after falling in their previous games. 

The game started out as a pure back and forth with both teams jockeying to take the lead. The biggest lead taken was 10-8 until junior defensive specialist Zack Mottet came up big with a five-point serving run to push the lead to 18-13.

“I was hitting my zones on the serves and everything like that, and it felt good because they couldn’t come back from the advantage we had,” Mottet said.

The closest the Cougars got in the set was two, but the margin gained from Mottet’s serving run gave the Wolves the points they needed to take the set 25-20.

The second set was all in East’s favor. Even with a few minor serve receive mishaps early in the set the Wolves always had the lead.

Towards the middle of the set is when the momentum began to quickly shift towards East. A big spike from sophomore middle back Payton Hastings started it off.

“It was awesome,” Hastings said. “To get that really secure hit and for our team to go on and get even more, it felt great.”

That more came from junior defensive specialist Tucker Rapp as he sent two fast spikes over the net to give East the momentum.

“That’s the game of volleyball,” Rapp said. “Big spikes create big momentum and that’s why we all play it.”

Rapp’s two points pushed the score to 18-13 just like in the first set, and East never looked back.

Junior outside hitter Andrew Koutsogiannis let out a smile as the score reached 23-14 and knew the Wolves were close to closing the game out.

“After two losses in a row, we said we were done with this and getting the win was a weight off our shoulders,” Koutsogiannis said.

The final score of the second set was 25-17 in favor of the Wolves.

Varsity assistant coach Dru Filkins was the interim head coach for the game as JV head coach Dina Beamon was out sick and he said he was impressed with the teams performance.

“I coached a lot of these guys last year so it was good to see them progress from last year and it was great to get the win,” Filkins said.

The Wolves play next at Hinsdale South on Monday at 4:30 p.m.

Teddy Wynard is a staff writer for Oswego East High School’s online news magazine the Howl