There was no better gauge of the improvements made by the York boys volleyball team than a rematch with Benet in the opening round of the postseason.

At the beginning of April, the Dukes fell in three sets. On Tuesday at the Glenbard East regional, the Dukes returned the favor with a 25-23, 20-25, 25-21 victory in Lombard.

York’s season came to a close Wednesday night in a 25-18, 25-21 loss to the top-seeded and host Rams in the regional final. However, the strides made by a highly inexperienced group could not go overlooked.

The Dukes stood three games under .500 after a loss on April 21, but finished 13-6 the rest of the way to close with a 19-17 overall record.

“It shows that you’ve come a little way and done some things,” York coach Patty Iverson said. “We’ve got a lot of players back. We’re really excited about next year.”

The Dukes lose just three seniors, but take a big hit with the graduation of hitter Steve Ogden.

Iverson said Ogden swung the best he had all season in the championship match against Glenbard East. He and fellow senior Marty Weith — who came in the second set against the Rams and was very active at the net both in blocks and kills — were the only returning players this season, while senior Andy Wethekam moved into the libero role over the last couple weeks.

The rest of the team should return, including junior middles Jon Ruprecht, Will Thompson and Dan Borel, starting setter Alex Tess and outside Joe Good. Junior setter Taylor Stipe also got playing time this season. The increase in their level of play over the past two months helped the Dukes get on track.

“They started expecting things from each other,” Iverson said. “If they didn’t do it they let people know. Jon and Will are huge and they make a really great block. Most of our blocks come from those two and they talk all the time — after every block they communicate about it.
“And Steve’s really gotten much more aggressive as the year’s gone by and hit very well the last couple weeks.”

In the first set of the regional finals, the Rams jumped out quickly to a 10-4 lead. They extended it to 15-8, but a four-point Duke run — capped by Thompson’s block kill — trimmed the lead to 15-12. Thompson had another kill to make it 17-13, but that was as close as the Dukes would get.

The second set was much closer as the team’s traded points to a 14-14 tie. The Rams, though, started pulling away with a 3-0 run to lead 17-14 and another 4-0 run later to go ahead 22-17.