Addison Trail makes short work of Hinsdale South in final game of regular season

Alex Dickmann registered his 900th career kill and Addison Trail reached the 30-win plateau for the third time in school history during Tuesday’s 25-13, 25-13 victory over visiting Hinsdale South in both team’s West Suburban Gold finale.

But the Blazers have bigger goals in mind.

“We’re looking forward to regionals,” said Dickmann, who had eight kills and four blocks in Tuesday’s win. “Most likely, we will have to play a Bartlett team that we’ve already beaten and then a Glenbard North team that upset us. We want some revenge.”

Dickmann and friends tuned up for their regional quest with an easy win over Hinsdale South, although the Hornets (4-26, 0-6) hung tough early in Game 1 and were within 13-10 before Addison Trail (30-4, 5-1) closed on a 12-3 run.

“One of the things I know we have to do in the tournament is play consistently,” said senior setter Kevin Grygo, who had 10 assists and a kill in Game 1 before yielding the setting chores to junior Joe Nasti in the second set.

“The past couple of weeks we’ve been up and down. Sometimes we play real well and fortunately it was against good teams, and some days we were playing bad. If we stay consistent, we have real good chance of being successful in the state tournament.”

Addison Trail coach Chad Grant admits that Dickmann gets the majority of the sets and the majority of the attention from opposing teams, so defense and contributions from his other hitters will be the key going forward.

“We’re never going to have a balanced offense,” he said. “Alex is always going to get a majority of the sets. But are those other four guys going to chip in with their four to six kills so the other team can’t key in on Alex? That’s part of the reason we’ve been successful the last couple of weeks.

“We’ve been struggling a little with our defense, but I think if we can add that part to our game where we’re keeping the ball alive all the time I think defense can be a determining factor whether we can beat some of those top teams in the playoffs.”

Sophomore middle hitter Kannon Nelms had four kills and three blocks, junior middle Jack Vrchota added four kills and Nasti contributed 11 assists for Addison Trail.

Hinsdale South got six kills from David Carli, three kills from Danny Perez and 12 assists from Brett Kvasnicka.