On verge of inglorious exit in fifth set, Chesterton boys volleyball stages dramatic comeback victory over Boone Grove with Robert Williams leading the way

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

To spectators on both sides of the bleachers at Liberty Intermediate/Middle School, the scoreboard told them the match was all over but the formality of scoring the clinching points.
Except it wasn’t over and Chesterton staged a remarkable comeback to win its first home match since the IHSAA made boys volleyball a full-fledged sport heading into this season.
The Trojans defeated Boone Grove in the fifth set 15-13, rallying from an 11-2 deficit, thanks to senior middle blocker Robert Williams coming up bigger than his height of 6-foot-7 inches.
The Trojans won the first set, lost the next two and appeared on the verge of getting blown out of a gym with a low ceiling that served as an emergency home court because Chesterton’s gym was having some work done on it in preparation for a new scoreboard.
The comeback victory came against a school CHS had been swept by in lopsided fashion since bringing club volleyball back in 2023 for two seasons in advance of it gaining IHSAA status this season.
Every set but one was close in Chesterton’s 25-23, 16-25, 23-25, 25-22, 15-13 victory.
Williams, a four-year basketball player at Chesterton, took up volleyball as a sophomore, the year a club team came back after a several-year hiatus. Just as in basketball, he has made big strides each year. For one thing, he’s jumping higher, which he attributed to year-round weightlifting and battling for boards in daily basketball practices.
“I can feel it,” Williams said. “I’m getting up so much higher than last year, and I’m able to hit the ball a lot harder too.”
Williams led the team in kills (nine) and tied with George O’Connor with four blocks. He scored the winning point and many more during the comeback from an 11-2 deficit.
“This was a great game to play in. It’s just a mindset,” Williams said of how the Trojans were able to convince themselves they still had a chance. “It’s not over yet. You need to continue to trust the system and everybody on the court to get the job done.”
Chesterton coach Kevin Lebaj said Williams had a “really good game today,” and predicted the best is yet to come from the senior. “We’re still working on some stuff, little things that he did during basketball. We have to get back into volleyball mode now and get him away from the basketball aspect of some of the stuff.”
Such as?
“How he uses his wrist, so his shooting motion in basketball his wrist snaps and goes up and in volleyball the wrist snaps and goes down,” Lebaj said. “We have to work on that but he’s catching on really quick. Really good leaper.”
The Trojans got a big boost from an even higher leaper, sophomore outside hitter Zane Westerlund, especially in winning the fourth set to tie the match and set up the dramatic fifth-set comeback.
“Zane jumps out of the gym,” Lebaj said. “He’s awesome. He’s what I would call a seventh man off the bench. I could put him almost anywhere on the front row and he does a great job for me.”
Lebaj also praised freshman Declan Ringler, the team’s second setter with sophomore Nate Mihut (27 assists).
As the team was on the verge of bowing out in the final set in ugly fashion, Lebaj knew he had to do something to create the feeling of a fresh start, a reset of sorts.
“When you’re down that much it’s one of those mindsets where you’re wondering what you can change right now to switch things up and go,” Lebaj said. “I made a sub right away with Declan and Zane in the middle and Declan was able to get a good hit, get a good pass, and that changed the whole aspect of the game when we only had two points and that kind of let us build little things here and there. I put Zane back in and we were on a roll then, and we couldn’t be stopped.”
More than just the dramatic comeback made this a feel-good night for the Chesterton boys volleyball program that improved to 3-0 after winning best-of-three matches vs. Lake Central, 2-1, and Michigan City, 2-0, last Saturday at Lake Central.
“This is huge. Boone Grove has a very good program and to be able to get our team to beat their team means a whole lot,” Williams said after the comeback. “I feel like we have a very good chance of going far. A lot of our best players are seniors, which gives us age and knowledge of the game, so I’m looking forward to the season.”
The season resumes Thursday vs. Hebron, again at Liberty, where not many balls hit the ceiling the JV match and it was a common occurrence once the varsity players took the court. It was played as a live ball when it did, and it didn’t seem to favor either team.