Say what?

That puzzled look on my face was from looking at the results of Saturday’s Schaumburg Invitational in girls volleyball. You mean the tournament’s top three teams were in the same pool? That answer is yes.

Seeding volleyball, or any other tournament, can be tough. The tournament director must look at previous matches, conference affiliations and upcoming schedules with the primary idea of setting up the best matches for your finals. In boys and girls soccer, Pepsi Showdown tournament director Joe Trost, the Chicago Sun-Times’ soccer writer, must seed his massive, 32-team tournament before the season starts, based on input from coaches, due to the headache of scheduling so many games.

At Schaumburg, Cary-Grove (23-3 entering the tournament), Crystal Lake South (16-5) and Stevenson (19-3) were placed in the same pool. As one coach said, “It is, what it is.”

Which means those schools did not have a say in seeding, I assume. Cary already beat CLS Sept. 30 and the FVC Valley teams meet again Thursday to decide the conference championship. So naturally, they met twice at Schaumburg to set up three matches against each other in six days. The two teams are also on a collision course to meet in the Class 4A Prairie Ridge Sectional semifinal Nov. 4. Cary won the pool by beating the Gators and CLS won the rematch against C-G and the tournament title, 26-24, 25-19. Stevenson, which was missing starting middle hitter Maria Skillman (family commitment), lost to Bartlett twice, Cary and CLS to go 1-4 in the tournament.

The host Saxons (9-19) won their pool and finished third in the tournament.