Change has been good for Lakes senior outside hitter Kaden Martin.
After all, amid the adjustments he has made, the Eagles haven’t stopped winning in the Northern Lake County Conference. Behind Martin and junior front-row standouts Erik Stover and David Synovic, Lakes is back in first place.
“It’s fun playing with Erik and David because they can do so many things to help us win,” Martin said.
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Of course, the 6-foot-3 Martin could say the same about himself. He moved from the middle to the outside last year. While he continues to be a force at the net, compiling 100 kills this season, he has become a more complete player for the five-time defending conference champion Eagles (13-10, 5-1).
“Kaden is by far our leading serve receiver (with 270 receptions),” Lakes coach Greg Bruns said. “Considering he has played middle most of his career and didn’t receive much during that time, he’s doing a great job.”
Martin uses his athletic ability to get to most balls in the back and gets passes to teammates any way he can, if not always the most technically refined way.
“He gets the job done, and that’s the most important thing,” Bruns said.
Martin had eight kills during Lakes’ 25-19, 25-23 conference victory on the road against Grayslake North on Tuesday. Stover added 10 kills, and Synovic had eight kills and four blocks.
The Eagles, who are tied with Antioch and Grayslake Central atop the conference standings, jumped ahead 5-0 in each game against the Knights (8-15, 2-4).
“We played well in the first game, but we lost our focus a bit in the second game, so it was closer than it should have been,” Martin said.
Grayslake North appeared ready to send the match into a third game after Adam Petraitis and Jack Calhoun recorded kills for a 23-22 lead.
But Lakes turned it around with three straight points, including kills by Stover and Synovic.
“When you have players like we do up front, we can make things happen quickly,” Martin said.
Lakes is testing that this season. Bruns has set up a difficult nonconference schedule, which could explain the Eagles’ double-digit losses even as they win in the conference. They’ll play in Stevenson’s quad on Friday and in Hersey’s six-team invitational on Saturday.
“Playing a strong schedule throughout the season definitely gets us ready for our conference and the postseason,” Bruns said. “We want to be ready for anything in the playoffs.”
Martin, who is planning to play club volleyball at Kansas while majoring in biology, agreed with Brun.
“I know we have a lot of good guys back, but we still had to work some new guys into our lineup, and that sometimes was a struggle for us early in the season,” he said. “We have been playing better recently. So we know if we continue to improve, we can win our conference again and make some noise in the state playoffs.”
Darren Day is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.