BBCHS comes back for first-ever win, All-City title at Kankakee

KANKAKEE – Through their first eight games as a varsity program this season, the Bradley-Bourbonnais boys volleyball team was looking for a breakthrough. The Boilermakers couldn’t have found it at a more perfect time than at Kankakee Thursday night.

In the inaugural varsity boys volleyball All-City championship game between the first-year varsity programs at Bradley-Bourbonnais and Kankakee, the Boilers rallied from a set down to earn both the program’s first-ever varsity win and the first-ever All-City title in the sport by a 2-1 final (21-25, 25-22, 25-11).

"I am so happy, because I have seen the potential in them for a long time, and I feel like with this team, going from JV to varsity is really tough," Boilers head coach Abby Downey said. “It’s a whole nother level, and today it just felt like it all clicked. They were communicating with each other better than they have in the past, you could see their confidence building all night, and it was like, this is what we’ve been waiting for.”

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Bradley-Bourbonnais' Timmy Pfrommer (13) and Jacob Berns (11) block a hit from Kankakee's Jamon Barlow during the All-City boys volleyball game at Kankakee Thursday, April 10, 2025. (Mason Schweizer)

After going winless through their first eight games, that turnaround came just in time to emerge from an area first in Thursday’s All-City championship, making their comeback a double historic one.

“It’s great. We’re gonna be on rafters,” senior Timmy Pfrommer said. “Knowing we got the first win in history, it’s pretty cool.”

What made Thursday’s game an instant classic wasn’t just how back-and-forth it was from the beginning of the night – neither team led by more than a point until the Kays turned a 7-7 tie to a 12-7 lead in the first set – but also how it will be remembered as a stepping stone on both programs’ paths. Despite falling a set short, Kays head coach Matt Donley also saw marked progress Thursday.

“This is one of our better performances today,” he said. “The third set’s not gonna reflect that, but overall this was one of our better-played games. We worked a lot on out-of-system things, we worked a lot on team cohesion, what to do when things aren’t exactly going to plan. That’s been our struggle in the past, and today I thought they executed.

“At the end of the day, that third set was all just about how we got behind early, and after that was just trying to play catch up,” he added. “And they were making some plays. B-B, they’ve got a great team, they were hitting great, they were blocking that. The mountain just got higher and harder for us to get back. But overall, it was a great game.”

The Kays (1-2) used that mid-set push in the first to build just enough of a cushion to hold off a furious Boilers rally, taking the first All-City set 25-21. The second set was almost a complete 180, as it was the Boilers who pulled ahead on some big-time plays by Pfrommer and Jacob Berns at the net to take a late 22-16 lead.

But on the back of Trayvone Jackson, who had a kill and two blocks on consecutive plays, the Kays were able to get to as close as 23-22 before Eli Hoekman and Dakari Faulkner put the finishing touches on a 25-23 win in the second.

And in the third, it was all Boilers. After Eli Cunningham’s kill put the Kays on the board first, the Boilers scored the next six points on their way to a mammoth 21-5 run.

“I think communication was key for us, especially in the back row,” Downey said. “We’ve been doing a lot of hesitating and hitters reaching back because our back row hadn’t been communicating when they needed to step up and take charge, and tonight they did that.

“They were very aggressive in the back row, communicating and were able to run our offense,” she continued. “Then Jacob Berns had some crazy hits, Timmy had some really great blocks, so that momentum just continued to build.”