The men’s volleyball team looks to finish their season by making the sectional tournament, according to head coach Tim Monahan. The team was in second place in conference behind New Trier with an 8-2 conference record, heading into post season play this week*. According to Monahan, the team has a strong offense but needs to work more on defense. Monahan attributes their strong offense to junior setter Alex Freidinger and Wes Blodig, senior captain and outside hitter. “[Freidinger] runs the court [and] our offense; he keeps getting to Blodig,” Monahan said. “The two of them really bring up the level of play for everyone around them.” According to Blodig, at the beginning of the season his main goal for the team was to improve the team chemistry so they could be more successful in games. “There’s no doubt that every player on this team has enough skill to compete, but what we needed to focus on was bonding as a team,” Blodig said. “It’s kind of like we are a family; on the court what we do and don’t do together makes a difference rather than pure skill.” The main focus at this point in the season is to fine-tune skills for the postseason, according to Monahan. A few of the skills that need to be improved is the team’s serving, passing and trying to eliminate as many errors as possible, according to Blodig. Blodig believes that the team’s errors are what caused them to lose to New Trier on May 11. The score was 18-25 in the first game and 23-25 in the second. “We […] gave them too many points, and [New Trier] ran [with] it and beat us,” Blodig said. The team has lost twice to New Trier, but beat Evanston twice. Blodig thinks the team’s best match was the first time they played Evanston on April 28. “We lost the first game and Monahan said, ‘You are way better than this team; you just have to believe in it and cut down on your mistakes and play like the players you are,’” Blodig said. “Then the second game was really good. We took them to three [games] and in the third game we came out with so much energy and a positive attitude [that] we just swept them in the last game.” During the CSL crossover match against GBN on May 20 at home, GBS won both games of the match. The first game was 25-23 and the second was 25-19. This was the  second time GBS played GBN after losing to them on April 9 while having some players out due to injury. “We just played as a team and we came out strong [against GBN],” Blodig said. “We went back to [the] basics and focused on our serve receive and our blocking, and because of that we were able to run a fast and successful offense.” *The Oracle went to print on May 27.*