PLAINFIELD – After graduating a talented class that had accomplished a great deal, Minooka’s boys volleyball team looked like it might be in for an uncharacteristic down year.

But while the Indians struggled with a young team early in the season, they definitely have made it clear that this isn’t a rebuilding year for a program that is not only used to winning the Southwest Prairie Conference, but also going far in the playoffs.

Coach Mike Kargle’s team won for the ninth time in their past 11 matches, and improved to 7-1 in the conference after capturing a, 25-21, 25-20, road win against a Plainfield East team that is enjoying one of its best seasons.

“The guys are responding to everything that we’re asking them to do,” Kargle said. “We’re busting our butts in the gym and they want more and more, and we’re at that stage where we can give them more and more. They’re excited about the next practice or next match.

“Both in the gym and out of it, these guys are together a lot. There’s a lot of programs that talk about being a family and that’s something that we have preached for quite some time. These guys are buying into that and realize that it makes life on the court that much easier. Our three seniors who’ve played on the varsity have the great leadership quality but they also have a calming effect when things aren’t going so well.”

Things weren’t going all that well during stretches of both sets for the Indians (11-7, 7-1), but they stepped up when they needed to, and were able to beat the Bengals (18-7, 6-2) in two sets for the second time this season.

“It was kind of the same song and dance from the first go-around,” Bengals coach Alex Rodriguez said. “Close sets and back-and-forth, and it really comes down to who can slow down the ball the best and who’s making big plays when push comes to shove. We’re right there. Our first contacts are the main difference from this year to last year.”

Things were tight throughout much of the opening set. East went up, 13-11, after two kills by Trey Cowan and an ace from Gabe Tovar.

But the Indians used a 6-0 run to move ahead for good. That featured two kills from Matthew Kurtz (25 assists) and a block and kill from Grant Ooms, who finished with 10 kills, three blocks and eight digs.

“At the beginning of the season we had a lot of growing pains because we have two freshmen and two sophomores playing,” Ooms said. “The young kids were nervous. We’ve gotten a lot of confidence over the past couple of weeks. It took Jack Bauer, Luke Wielbik and me to help give these kids get confidence. We set the example what we want this program to be. Our program has a lot of history so we want to keep that going.”

Minooka grabbed a 6-1 lead to open the final set with Ooms and A.J. Lewis (seven kills) each collecting two kills. They were still up 9-4 following a block by Noah Easter (five blocks) before East started to close the gap.

“I’m really proud of how we’ve come together as a team with having kids in every grade,” Lewis. “We went from a group not knowing about each other to coming together as a team in practices and games. We have a lot of potential and if we fix our mistakes, we’ll be a lot better. Many of the teams we go against have a lot of seniors and people with experience but with a lot of us being new, I’m excited to see how we’ll be at the end of this year.”

With Matt Binkus (eight kills) getting two kills and a block and Cowan, Dominic Culotta and Erik Gerulskis also adding kills, East claimed a, 16-14, lead and was still up, 19-17, following a kill by Noah Van Wyk before the Indians responded to the challenge.

Minooka rattled off the final six points with Ooms getting a kill, Lewis contributing a kill and sharing a block with Luke Wielbik (five kills), who also added a kill during the closing run.

“Our recent seniors all led by example so we said that we should do the same thing,” Wielbik said. “Every day we come into the gym and work hard. We don’t like to give up easily and we’re a group of guys that likes to stick together so when of us falls, we pick each other up. At tryouts, I didn’t know what to expect but at the first practice, I thought, ‘we’re not going to be too bad.’ After our first game I knew we could be good and we keep raising the bar.”