Junior Zane Westerlund delivers another powerful performance in boys volleyball 3-0 win vs. visiting Boone Grove and looks to keep his role going today vs. Hebron, another 5 p.m. start at home

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The spotlight shines on eight senior night honorees when the Chesterton boys volleyball team plays its fifth match in six days today at home vs. Hebron.
Carson Chaffee, Randy Deutscher, Caden Koedyker, Adam LeNeave, Zach Marchese, Bryce Sartin, Keith Ward and Jackson Whalen will be showered with pregame love and then the varsity squads take the floor at 5 p.m.
At that point, the spotlight likely will shift to the undefeated team’s skywalkers on the front row, led by junior Zane Westerlund, with adrenaline-charging moments also supplied by Deutscher and junior Peyton Dilbeck.
Westerlund consistently has delivered such exciting, efficient performances that it’s easy for the mind to wander to a compelling question: Are we looking at someone who could graduate from Chesterton as a rare two-sport all-state athlete?
Over and over, Westerlund peppered the floor with searing, accurate shots in a 3-0 win Wednesday night over visiting Boone Grove.
Deutscher had some loud moments as well in helping the Trojans to deliver a 25-19, 25-16, 25-17 sweep.
A junior all-state linebacker, Westerlund had the hot hand from the start.
“I was feeling pretty good today,” Westerlund said after the match. “I felt on it. Mentally, I was just there, so I was just doing what I wanted to do. That’s what I love about volleyball. It’s such a mental game. If you can just get in the right head space, it’s fun. It’s awesome.”
Human nature is such that the mind won’t feel the same every day, so Westerlund tries his best to make everything he can control the same as the last time so that he can find the sort of mental space he had Wednesday.
“I try to get into a routine, eat the same thing, stretch the same way,” he said.
Also, maturity has given him the discipline to resist the temptation to break the floor during warmups.
“I try to conserve myself when I’m warming up and just try to have a routine and stick to it,” Westerlund said. “It’s so fun, just freaking coming and killing it, but I have to conserve my energy. I get a couple of bangouts, then after that I’m like, ‘All right, better conserve it.’ Last year I would come out and start swinging crazy. Now I’m more conservative, smarter with my warmup.”
Head coach Cathy Dilbeck has a lot of work to do in trying to instill volleyball fundamentals into players who almost to a man took up the sport in high school because organized leagues at younger ages were an option almost exclusively for girls because boys volleyball didn't become an IHSAA sanctioned sport until last year. Meanwhile, she’s enjoying the luxury of coaching skywalkers.
“You just have to get the ball in the air and Zane’s such a powerhouse he’s just hard to stop,” the coach said. “He can touch, what, 10-10? Randy touches 11-6. You’ve got to get up on those guys, so if they’re able to turn it around the block, it’s going to be hard to defend.”
In learning the finer points of the sport, it helps to do it together with players who were friends before they were volleyball teammates. Senior Caden Koedyker and juniors Dilbeck, Elliot Mehling and Westerlund all are football players. Dilbeck, Mehling and Westerlund were teammates on the intramural basketball championship team this past winter, a reprise of a freshman team that per Peyton Dilbeck's recollection went 21-3 playing for Coach Drew Boetel.
The players weren't sure of how many games they played during the intramural team but all know they went undefeated.
Westerlund: “Elliot, what was our record again?”
Mehling: “Undefeated. I think nine, maybe 10 games.”
Westerlund: “I think it was 9-0. The championship game was the closest. We were down by 10 at halftime, came back and won.”
Undefeated in the winter and undefeated less than a week into the spring season, Westerlund’s off to a great start climbing air ladders and sending crowds soaring.