QUINCY, Ill. – Looking to knock off two of the top-three teams in the NAIA Preseason Coaches' Poll in their first two days of the season, the Campbellsville University men's volleyball team earned a 3-0 sweep win against No. 3 Grand View University Friday afternoon.
For the second-straight match, the Tigers took a 2-0 lead in the match after a tight 27-25 win in the first set and a slightly more comfortable 25-21 win in set two, then the sweep was clinched on another close set where Campbellsville pulled off a 25-23 set win.
The attacking numbers between the teams were very similar as the Vikings totaled 82 attacks to 81 for the Tigers with CU holding an advantage in hitting percentage at .321 to .232. Campbellsville only had three less attack errors and four more kills than Grand View with the points scored by each team was separated by less than a point at 49-48.5 in favor of the Tigers.
The Tigers spread out their offensive attack between five players with four or more kills led by the 11 kills from both
Rafael Cruz and
Yannik Ahr. Ahr was the more efficient attacker of the two as he hit for a .300 hitting percentage with Cruz not too far behind at .250 for the match.
Mats Radzuweit,
Ramon Matos, and
Noah Henkel were the other three attackers with four or more kills as Radzuweit finished the match with seven, Matos added six, and Henkel started strong with four kills in the first two sets to finish with those four kills in only five attacks.
CU had a 24-20 lead in the opening set before the Vikings were able to score four-straight points to force an extension of the set before Campbellsville pulled out the 27-25 win. Early in the second set, the score was tied 6-6 but then Campbellsville jumped out to a 13-6 lead after a 7-0 run and never looked back as the run even extended to a 9-1 run from CU trailing 5-4.
The third set was tight throughout with the largest lead for either team being three points before Campbellsville scored three of the final four points of the match after the score was tied 22-22 late in the set to win 25-22, clinching the sweep.
There is a slight shift in the Tigers schedule tomorrow as they were originally scheduled for a 12 p.m. match against Briar Cliff University but that has been changed to a 4 p.m. match against Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Mo. after travel issues for the Briar Cliff team.
