Zayna Meyer (left) and Wheaton Warrenville South rode some mid-season changes to the IHSA Class 4A finals at Redbird Arena. (Photo by Dave Ruggles) The 2019 season is in the record books.Newark and Sterling repeated. Benet denied Marist’s bid to three-peat. St. Teresa ruled Class 2A. 14168...

Fremd's Rian Baker (17) set the Vikings to the Mid-Suburban League championship Wednesday. (Photos by Dave Ruggles) Et ludos incipere. (That’s Latin for “Let the games begin.” Fr. Puchalski would be proud). 13675...

Class 1A No. 1 Newark (31-1) defeated Class 3A Metamora and Morton to win last weekend's Saints Fall Classic at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. You can bet the stands will be full Tuesday when Class 4A No. 2 Marist entertains top-ranked and unbeaten Benet. The two programs have dominated Class 4A volleyball the past eight years with Benet winning three IHSA championships (2011, 2013, 2014) during that period and Marist winning the last two. Last year, the programs met three times. Marist defeated Benet to win the Wheaton ...

Six-foot-2 junior middle hitter Storm Suhre (17) and Edwardsville went 3-2 at last weekend's Scholastic Cup tournament hosted by St. Charles East at the Great Lakes Volleyball Center in Aurora. (Photos by Dave Ruggles) Class 4A powerhouses Benet and Marist headline the two major tournaments in the Chicago area this weekend. Marist (25-2) is the top seed at the 30-team Fall Harvest Festival sponsored by Illprepvb.com at Plainfield Central beginning Friday with pool play at Plainfield North and the host school. Plainfield North is the No...

Mother McAuley (far court) has recovered from an 0-4 start and re-entered the rankings after finishing third at the Asics Challenge. (Photo by Dave Ruggles) The jockeying for position is over. The IHSA tournament just a mere three weeks away and sectional seeds are scheduled to be posted Thursday.  A few years ago, the IHSA adopted an online seeding system, which denied coaches the opportunity to state their cases in an open forum. Many coaches have expressed a desire to return to face-to-face seeding meetings, at least where geog...

Marist will be among the teams vying for the title at this weekend's Asics Challenge hosted by Mother McAuley. (Photo by Dave Ruggles) What do Assumption (Louisville, Kentucky), Ballston Lake (Burnt Hills, New York), St. Thomas Aquinas (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida), Marist, Sandburg, St. Francis and Huntley all have in common? They are among the 24 teams competing this weekend at the Asics Challenge hosted by Mother McAuley. The Asics Challenge has long been the playground of Ron Kordes’ Assumption Rockets, although the locals have broken t...

Lemont (far court) went 4-1 to win the Silver division at the Wheaton Classic on Saturday and solidify its position as one of the state's top Class 3A teams. (Photos by Dave Ruggles) There’s a new No. 1.At least until October 22, if not sooner.Benet and Marist tangled for the third consecutive year in the championship match of the Wheaton Classic on Saturday, and unlike the previous two times the teams met, this time it was Benet coming away with the three-set win, 22-25, 29-27, 25-22.But the road ahead is filled with pitfalls for both ...

Plainfield North, ranked No. 7 in the preseason, re-entered the rankings following its championship run at the Effingham Crossroads Classic. (Photo by Dave Ruggles) There were some changes in the rankings since last week with a handful of teams making some big noise. Marist remained No. 1 in Class 4A despite losing on the road at (Mundelein) Carmel, while Plainfield North re-entered the rankings after its impressive performance at Effingham’s Crossroads Classic. Sterling remained No. 1 in 3A despite losing Saturday to East Moline at Ga...

Heidi Bonde and the Minooka Indians are among the teams making their debut in the Michio Chicago/Illprepvb.com Girls High School Volleyball Rankings this week. (Photo by Dave Ruggles). Two weeks into the season and what have we learned?Well, we have learned the Class 3A and 2A are loaded with great teams, all of Class 4A is still chasing Marist, and Class 1A is still Newark and everybody else. Meanwhile, this week’s rankings feature 13 new teams, including Minooka, Naperville Central, De La Salle, LaSalle-Peru and Newman Central Cathol...

Marist walked off with a lot of hardware in 2018, including the title of the Illprepvb.com/Crosstown Classic hosted by Plainfield North. Marist was Illprepvb.com’s No. 1 team in the preseason in 2018, and justified that confidence by rolling through the regular season and the IHSA to win its second consecutive IHSA Class 4A championship. Will history repeat itself … again? Meanwhile, this season, Illprepvb.com is changing things up a little. After ranking 25 teams regardless of class each of the previous two seasons, this fall...