By the time boys volleyball regional championships are decided at the end of this week, Stanley Antoine won’t be the only coach involved in the Illinois High School Association state tournament series who says “Wait ‘til next year.”
But the Evanston coach has more reasons than most of his fellow coaches to be excited about the future.
And it wouldn’t surprise anyone if there is a case of role reversal for the Wildkits and No. 1 sectional seed Maine South by the time the Class of 2028 is ready to graduate.
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An Evanston team that at one point had five sophomores on the floor at the same time --- a first for the program in postseason play --- was eliminated by Maine South with a 30-28, 25-19 loss to the Hawks Tuesday in the Niles West Regional semifinals. The defeat dropped ETHS to a final record of 21-16, including three losses to South.
Maine South, now 27-4, advanced to the regional title match against Niles West. The Hawks survived three set points where Evanston had the advantage in the first set --- responding every time --- and didn’t allow the Kits to string together many points in a row behind a senior-dominated lineup in the second set.
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That veteran lineup had the edge on the younger Kits this time around. But Antoine knows that Tuesday’s outcome, and the 2026 campaign as a whole, is part of a building process for the future.
“I think the entire program definitely took a step forward this year,” Antoine said. “The important thing is for us to build on this season and use it as a stepping stone.
“Seeing how this group came together (including senior starters George Parker and Eric Rosenthal, plus reserves Charles Drew, Pascal Juhnke, Thibault Juhnke and Jaxson Malow-Williams) this year, I’m a little sad and a little disappointed that we can’t continue on this journey. But it’s exciting that we have so many weapons coming back.
“Maine South is No. 1 in the sectional for a reason, and we didn’t play a clean enough game tonight. We played them tough, but we had too many errors. We know we can’t make that many errors against a strong team like that.”
The first set gave Wildkit fans hope that an upset was brewing. Evanston had extended the Hawks to three sets the second time the two teams met during the regular season, and the Kits kept the faith after falling behind 17-13 on a kill by the Hawks’ Elijah Graves, a 6-foot-6 senior.
Sophomore Charlie Frisch rallied the No. 15 seeded Kits with an impressive display of both hitting and blocking during a 6-0 run. After a kill by Parker, Frisch rejected a soft hit by South’s Gavin Lipinski; scored on a roll shot; and blocked another South attempt, this one by Lipinski again.
Max Amat also contributed a block for a point during that run that lifted ETHS back into the lead at 20-18. South pulled even on a deep shot by Luka Babich, another 6-6 senior, then fended off those three potential set points before finishing off the victory on an Evanston hitting error and Nelson Arteta’s power kill at the net.
Evanston only led once in the second set, at 2-1, despite the defensive play of sophomore Nick Livatino, who never backed down from South’s power hitters and provided almost flawless ballhandling.
Frisch finished with a team-high 5 kills and Derrick Nelson contributed 4 kills for the losers. In defeat, Antoine wanted to give a “shout out” to Parker for his play on defense. The versatile senior moved to an outside hitter slot for the matchup with the Hawks in an attempt to blunt South’s attackers.
“He doesn’t usually play outside like that, but we put him there because we needed his blocking. George really stepped up,” Antoine praised.
“We wanted to get a few more stops tonight than we did. During the season, our defense got a lot more confident and our blocking really solidified. We made it a lot tougher for teams to score on us. And on offense, we figured out what we did best and what else we needed to work on. We do have a lot of weapons coming back.”
One of those returnees, soph Arad Takloobighash, led the CSL in blocks this spring and was one of the statistical leaders in that category for the entire state of Illinois.
Evanston advanced to the regional semis by ousting Palatine Fremd with a 25-19, 28-26 triumph last Friday behind 6 kills apiece from Nelson, Frisch and Arimus Mosley.
