David MacDonald may have been tired, for very good reason, but you wouldn’t have known it Saturday afternoon.
The Metea Valley volleyball coach was still walking on air and couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off his face.
His Mustangs winning back-to-back three-game matches to take fifth place at Waubonsie Valley’s Warrior Blast helped, but there was another reason. MacDonald became a first-time father this week and knew he’d soon be rejoining his wife Melisa and son Jack at the hospital, getting ready for Jack’s first trip home on Sunday.
“There’s been a lot of emotion this week,” said the young coach, whose wife gave birth Wednesday morning shortly after 10 o’clock.
The night before, she had been on hand for his team’s Upstate Eight Valley win at home over South Elgin. The girls on his team presented the couple with gifts for the baby they knew was coming soon and crowded around her on the bleachers for a picture with all of them reaching to touch her stomach.
“I got to come to practice Thursday and the first thing they asked was how Melisa and Jack were doing and if they could see pictures,” MacDonald said. “They told me I’d have a lot of babysitters. All of them said they’d work for free, but they take tips.
“It’s a great bunch of girls.”
The Mustangs won Saturday’s fifth-place match with Rosary 20-15, 25-10, 26-24 after defeating Bolingbrook 25-23, 20-25, 25-21. They had opened the day, dropping a 25-18, 25-11 quarterfinal to Downers Grove North after going 1-1 in pool play the night before.
“Obviously, we wanted to finish in the top four and we got fifth, but Downers North is a great team and we’ll see them Thursday (in a nonconference match,” MacDonald said.
“We lost focus but bounced back, beating Bolingbrook and Rosary.”
Lexie Lobdell, who had 94 kills in the tourney, made the all-tournament team.
After going 3-2 in the tourney, Metea Valley is 12-9 and returns to Waubonsie Valley Tuesday for a key Upstate Eight Valley match at 5:30.
The rematch
Host Waubonsie Valley and Neuqua Valley met for the title for the second year in a row with the Wildcats reversing last year’s outcome and claiming a 25-22, 25-23 win.
“Neuqua Valley is a very strong serving team,” Waubonsie coach Kristen Didier said. “They definitely picked us apart on serve receive. It makes it difficult to win when you aren’t in system very often, which we were not.”
The Warriors (14-7) were pushed to three games in a quarterfinal win over Rosary (25-21, 21-25, 25-13) and the semifinal with Plainfield Central (25-18, 17-26, 25-22).
Batavia, which lost its quarterfinal match with Plainfield Central, bounced back to top Bolingbrook 25-19, 27-29, 25-14 in the seventh place match.
“We’ve taken some good teams to three (games), we just don’t have the consistency to finish some of them off,” coach Lori Trippi Payne said of her 7-15 team.
Yorkville keeps rolling
Coach Mike Dunn’s Foxes (21-1) were pushed to three games in just one of their five wins on the weekend as they claimed the title of the inaugural Oswego East Wolf-Den Invitational.
Yorkville defeated Oswego East 27-25, 24-26, 25-19 in a semifinal and then topped Oregon (25-19, 25-20) in the title bout. They added wins over Rich South, Joliet West and Fenton.
Jordan Albarran, Katie Nolan and Emily Gutzwiler all made the all-tourney team for Yorkville.
