GBN BOYS FRESHMAN VOLLEYBALL TEAM WINS CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP

The GBN Freshman A Volleyball team lost only one match all year and ended the regular season in first place with a 14-1 record. They were only extended to 3 games in 3 regular season games. That was quite an accomplishment for a team with only 8 players. They avoided major injuries and continued to improve from game to game.

The one loss came at home against Highland Park in their first match up, but that
set back was righted when they traveled to HP and beat the Giants on their own
floor later in the season. The team also won every regular season tournament they played beating top programs from NewTrier, Stevenson, Buffalo Grove and Lake Forest. Yet, when the conference championship seeds were announced, GB
was ranked 4th. Feeling a little “disrespected” the team came into the season’s final match ups with something to prove.

After 2 routine victories on Friday night, they came back on Saturday and faced a
much bigger Maine South group. As has been the case all season the smaller,
quicker and better coached group from GBN prevailed in 2 straight. Then came
the Semi Finals against New Trier the# 1 seed. In a hard fought match that went
3 games, GBN once again came out on top. Several people said it was one of the
best Freshman contests they had seenin quite some time.

GBN advanced to the conference finals against their nemesis, the Highland Park Giants. This match went three games as well, and might not have been as well played as the semi’s, but the match had a lot of intensity. In the end, GBN just had more weapons, and blew HP out in the third game 15-8, winning the Conference Championship.-

GBN is coached by Margaret Sullivan (Sully) who has helped make the GBN
volleyball program one of the best in the state, year in and year out. The team has three players (Derrick Goldstein, Cam Hillocks, and Teddy Shapiro) who played together during the club season, which gave them a great nucleus to build around. Rob Chatterton, Johnny Bear, Alex Merrit, Jonah Fialkow, and Adam Slutsky all came up big at different times during the season.

It was a great team with a lot of spirit which made them fun to watch.