By: Urbana Athletic Communications
Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 URBANA, Ohio – The Urbana University men's volleyball team dropped a pair of matches in Saturday's home tri-meet with St. Xavier University (IL) and Tusculum University (TN).
In the opening match at the Grimes Center, UU fell in four sets to NAIA power St. Xavier: 25-19, 20-25, 25-20 & 25-20.
Tyler Chavez and
Liam Morrissey both posted double-digit kill performances, but it wasn't enough. Chavez finished with 12 kills while Morrissey had 10.
St. Xavier (9-4) hit .293 for the match but had hitting percentages of .483 (17-9-23) and .435 (17-2-23) in the first and third sets, respectively. In the lone set that Urbana won, the Blue Knights were able to hold the Cougars to a .037 hitting percentage.
The Blue Knights were only able to tally a collective .212 (38-17-99) hitting percentage against the ninth-ranked team in the latest AVCA/NAIA poll.
Chaz Hafer dished out 28 assists from his setter position. Hafer would tie for the team-lead in aces with
Preston Kent with four apiece. Kent teamed with
Kurt Klamfoth to lead the Blue Knights at the net with three blocks each.
Jack Brinkman led the Blue Knights with seven digs and hit a team-best .438 on seven kills in 16 attempts with no attack errors.
In the finale, the Blue Knights rolled to a 2-0 lead but Tusculum pulled off the reverse sweep: 22-25, 17-25, 25-18, 25-23 & 20-18.
Chavez recorded a career-high 26 kills and logged a .296 (26-10-54) hitting percentage while Hafer posted career-highs in assists (50), aces (5) and digs (10). Brinkman posted 14 kills while Kent finished with seven kills and five blocks.
Tomas Beralas logged 10 digs.
Urbana avoided three match-point scenarios at the end of the fifth set as back-to-back kills from Brinkman and Chavez put the Blue Knights ahead 17-16.
Then, UU led 18-17 after trading points but the Pioneers were able to clinch the victory with three straight points out of a timeout.
Back-to-back kills by TU's Matteo Miselli ended the contest.
Miselli led the visitors with 25 kills and three aces. Setter Lucas Blanco had 51 assists and Peter Stewart finished with a team-high 13 digs.
UP NEXT: Urbana (1-16) will travel to New York in two weeks for matches at Daemen and St. Francis College Brooklyn on Friday-Saturday, March 6-7.
