You won’t find a much better name for a volleyball player than Jack Hopman.

The Minooka senior middle showed off his hops and more Monday as the Indians cruised to a 25-16, 25-13 Southwest Prairie Conference win over Joliet Central.

Throughout the early going, the Indians and Steelmen were going back and forth, with neither team able to get out to more than a two-point lead until Minooka (5-16, 1-4) went ahead 13-10. The Steelmen (9-19, 0-5) got points on a Minooka hitting error and an ace by Felipe Vega to pull to within 13-14 before Hopman took over.

The 6-1 middle stuffed a Central kill attempt for a block and a 14-12 lead, then stepped to the service line and served four straight points, getting kills from Emerson Wilhelm and Elijhah Slavik while putting the Indians firmly in control at 18-12.

“We feed off of each other and our energy,” Hopman said. “When we all get going together, we like to keep it going and keep scoring.”

It was a welcome win for the Indians after going 0-6 over the weekend at the highly competitive, 32-team Lincoln-Way East Invitational.

“Playing that type of competition is tough, but it helps us when we play conference matches and in the postseason,” Hopman said. “Those really good teams will show you what you need to work on, and then we go into practice and try to improve on it.

“What we want to do is make the routine plays, and we were able to do that tonight. Now we hope that continues.”

The Indians carried the momentum from the first-set win into the second, racing out to a 7-1 lead and never looking back. The Steelmen were led by Logan Novak with four kills, while Logan Wright added three.

“We had too many unforced errors,” Central coach Nick Ratajczak said. “I was a little nervous about tonight, because a lot of our guys play club at UNO with a lot of their guys. It’s hard to play against guys that are your friends.

“We really struggled with serve-receive and holding our rallies. When we do that, we can be pretty good. We did it last week and took a couple of teams to three sets. We are a young team, so we are still looking for that consistency. But for a team this young, nine wins so far isn’t bad, and we’ve got three more chances this week to get to No. 10.”

Hopman and Bennett Robinson had four kills each to lead Minooka, while Slavik had three. Hopman also had three blocks.

Minooka coach JoDee Kovanda was pleased to see her team rebound from a rough weekend.

“It was a tough weekend, for sure,” Kovanda said. “But seeing the teams we saw at Lincoln-Way East really helps prepare us for conference and the postseason. It only makes us better, and we played a lot better tonight.

“We didn’t make a lot of unforced errors; our hitters did their jobs better. We say, ‘If you can’t make them pay, make them make a play.’ We did a good job of just getting the ball over the net if it wasn’t a kill shot and making the other team make a play.

“When our team is up and playing like they did tonight, they feed off of each other, and that’s fun to see.”