Minooka's Shane Ooms (2, far left) suffered a serious ankle injury during club season, but hopes to come back and lead Minooka to an IHSA championship. (Photo by Dave Ruggles) Minooka's Shane Ooms By Matt Le Cren Special to Illprepvb.comMinooka star Shane Ooms had visions of leading his team to a state championship this spring.Instead, the 6-foot-4 senior outside hitter has been cooling his jets while rehabbing a gruesome ankle injury.Now the coronavirus pandemic has sidelined all of his teammates and every other athlete indefi...

Naperville Central's Nick Badrljica spends hours each day playing "Fortnite," the most popular video game in the world. He and his partner are among the top-ranked players in the United States. "Fortnite" has more than 200 million registered players worldwide. By Matt Le CrenSpecial to Illprepvb.comAs a freshman, Nick Badrljica decided he didn’t have time to try out for the volleyball team at Naperville Central.He was too busy playing video games.In an earlier generation – or even just a decade ago – that would be considered a sign of ...

Benet defeated Edwardsville, 25-20, 25-23, to win the St. Charles East Scholastic Cup at the Great Lakes Center in Aurora on Saturday. It was the Redwings' first tournament title in three tries. https://youtu.be/evITGBceZLM By Phil BrozynskiIllprepvb.com EditorNearly everybody walked away with something … a championship, exposure to good competition, learning that your team can overcome adversity despite losing another body to injury.But that’s what tournaments are for …  in this case, the St. Charles East Scholastic Cup at the G...

SPVB 16 Elite, which added five new faces to the roster that finished second in the nation as 15s last summer. Question: Which was the only team from Illinois to reach an open division championship at the 2019 USA Volleyball Junior National Championships in Dallas, Texas, last summer?It wasn’t Ultimate B18 Gold, which won the 2019 Boys Winter Volleyball Championships at McCormick Place on January 19-21 and topped the final Illprepvb.com boys club rankings. The boys from the south side finished 10th at nationals.It wasn’t Chicago Bounce 17 R...

Chicago Bounce 18 Red defeated Ultimate B18 Gold, 25-23, 20-25, 15-11, in its opener Saturday at Palos Courts to ensure a return trip to Bracket A on Sunday. Most coaches like to break down the boys’ club volleyball seasons into three parts – the preseason, the qualifier season and nationals.The preseason continued Saturday at Palos Courts in Palos Heights with the B18-Palos Point Series #3.The B18-Palos Point Series will wrap up Sunday before breaking for the holidays with a couple of newcomers joining holdovers Future 18 Elite, UNO Boys 1...

Madisen Babich (far right) enjoyed an all-state career at Lyons Township under former coach Joann Pyritz before moving on to Cal State Fullerton. She now tackles another challenge at Downers Grove South. (Photo by Mark Brown for Cal State-Fullerton Athletics). We are just a few days away from the first day of practice for the 2021 Illinois girls’ high school volleyball season.No one is still quite sure what the season will look like. We do know that per Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s order Wednesday, all Illinois K-12 students whether in public or pr...

Marist lost a second consecutive match for the first time since 2017 when it fell to visiting St. Francis on Monday. St. Francis' Aiden Benson (left) and Kevin Schuele. By Randy WhalenSpecial to Illprepvb.comComing off its first loss of the season, St. Francis not only wanted to regroup, the Spartans  wanted to show they were still a top team.The Spartans did exactly that.Coming up with some huge plays down the stretch, St. Francis defeated Marist, 25-17, 25-23, in a scintillating matchup Tuesday on Chicago’s south side.St. Francis...