Kicking off their season Tuesday night, East´s varsity boys’ volleyball team faced defeat against the Neuqua Wildcats.

Battling against a 6´7 Loyola commit on the opposing team, the Wolves failed to come away with a win, narrowly losing the first two sets 22-25 and 23-25. 

Both teams surrendered points to serving and hitting errors. Neuqua struggled with the fundamentals, losing three points as a result of incorrect rotations. 

Although it wasn´t the outcome the team wanted, senior offensive specialist Niko Perrozi said he contributed to the team´s aggressiveness but still has goals to improve in the future. 

¨I feel like I had good coverage on our hits and helped the team with my kills,¨ Perozzi said. ¨Moving forward, I want to have better communication and confidence on the court.¨

Starting libero Nathan Thach is new to the team, but despite being a freshman on varsity, Thach said the team embraced him like any other peer.

¨I don’t really feel a lot of pressure being the only freshman,¨ Thach said. ¨I feel like the team´s eased me into it pretty well.¨

The young libero believed the game played out well and expresses confidence in his team’s skill set but continues to focus on the future.

¨Now we need to work,¨ Thach said. ¨We have a lot to improve on but we’re just going to keep working harder and only get better from here.¨

With ten years of assistant coaching on his resumé, newly promoted head coach Dru Filkins was not phased by his responsibilities. He said the team struggled most in the second set with capitalizing on the opportunities they were presented. 

¨I think overall our service passing was what helped us a lot especially when we ran our offense,¨ Filkins said. ¨When we got in trouble is when we couldn’t get the ball to the setter.¨

Returning varsity right side Ryan Schuitema said moving forward the team needs to not get down on their mistakes and continue playing with an aggressive and positive attitude. 

¨Going into the upcoming games I want super high energy, positive energy and to try to forget about this first game,¨ Schuitema said. ¨Put it behind us and move on.¨

The Wolves return to the court this weekend for a two day tournament at Joliet West. 

Grace Praxmarer is a staff editor for Oswego East’s online news magazine The Howl