Last season wasn’t easy for the Lockport boys volleyball team. Senior middle Austin Williams even said as much when asked if it was.

“Noooo,” Williams said with a laugh. “Last year was pretty rough. It was a growing stage for sure. Our guys had to bond together and grow.”

This year, that growth has been evident so far.

Lockport is now 7-1 on the year after sweeping Joliet West 25-20, 25-11 at home Tuesday evening. It was their fourth victory in a row.

It’s been a nice turnaround for the Porters after 2025 saw them post the first losing season in coach Nick Mraz’s 12-year tenure. That team was replacing 10 seniors who started at various times in their prep careers and was very young.

This year still has some youth, which Mraz said is intentional, but they also have 10 seniors this year as well. That experience has made all the difference, though that youth has stepped up as well.

“We were just a young team last year,” senior middle Ryan Beaumont said. “We have a lot of sophomores stepping up this year on varsity, which has helped a lot too, though.”

To be exact, the Porters have three sophomore starters out there in Jaxon Miller, Zack Johnson and Noah Bluhm.

“Shoutout to Jackson Miller,” Williams said. “He’s very solid on serve-receive and defender. We haven’t had a ton of underclassmen step up in years past.”

Beaumont concurred with his teammate while singling out Johnson for praise.

“He plays all six rotations,” Beaumont said. “Coming in on varsity as a sophomore it’s really tough to come in and do all that.”

Mraz mentioned that all three sophomores are holding their own and earning their playing time. He also said that having younger players get experience now will help the team in future years.

Make no mistake, though, this is still a senior-led team. Mraz couldn’t say enough about his two middles on Tuesday.

“From 15-20 last year to starting 7-1 now, that’s something we’ll welcome with open arms,” Mraz said. “Our middles are going to win us matches. Our outside’s jobs are to keep us in matches. We talked about that with how we make our decisions.

“We know our serve receive is going to be consistent so we can run our middles as often as we can. That’s going to open up a lot of things. That duo that we got are really clicking right now so that’s good to see.”

Tuesday saw things start out a little shaky for the Porters. A few errors had them down 5-3 early and the two teams battled back between one-point leads and draws early. The Porters managed to get some separation at 10-8 which grew to 13-9 shortly after.

When things got to 17-10, Tigers coach Tara Litwicki called a timeout. Joliet West managed to get within five before dropping set one.

Set two, however, was all Lockport. They were up 8-1 to start and led by as many as 22-9 before a pair of late points by West got two straight. Lockport closed with three unanswered to win the match.

Lockport was led by Williams (five kills), Jaxon Miller (two aces, six digs) and Antonio Fiordirosa (11 assists). Joliet West was led by Dre Lyles (four kills), Max Neverman (three blocks, one ace) and Sam Racutt (nine assists).

As for Joliet West (4-3), they’re a young group this season. Litwicki praised the team’s effort in practice, but said they’ll need to cut back on the in-game errors to get where they want.

“We have to stay consistent,” she said. “If we play consistent we look good. You can’t have a nice run and then go to the serving line and mess up your serve. It interrupts your flow. ...It was our errors and we have to be able to eliminate those.”