Northside takes it to Lane

BY MICHAEL WOJTYCHIW                                                                            May 18, 2011

Sometimes some revenge is pretty sweet. That’s exactly what Northside got when it defeated Lane in the second Public League semifinal Wednesday afternoon at Senn 25-22, 25-18.

“We lost to them earlier so this is a pretty sweet win,’’ said senior Luke Sobieraj. “It feels good to beat Lane.’’

Northside (21-8) was led in both sets by Sobieraj and Wesley Morioka. The two players, who are the setters in part of a 6-2 offensive system, combined for 16 kills, many times setting each other up.

After getting down 22-15, the Indians (24-10) used the serving of Joseph Lee to draw them within 23-21, before two Lane errors gave Northside the first set win.

Taking the service line up 17-16 in the second set, Sobieraj served seven straight points to get the Mustangs to set point, before setting up Morioka for the match-winning kill.

“We’ve lost in the semifinals the last two years, Sobieraj said. We just flat out lost the past two years, so we knew we had to be focused and came out and played.

“Right out of the season we were really scrappy with a lot of our guys coming off of basketball and me and Wes coming out of club, so it took us a while to iron things out. We knew that the regular season didn’t matter as much, that it was all about the city playoffs.’’

John Vietnam Nguyen led Lane with eight kills. Morioka had nine kills for Northside, while Sobieraj had seven.