February 15, 2011

The Quincy University men's volleyball team had their three match winning streak snapped in a 3-0 loss at home to Lewis University on Tuesday night. The Hawks were swept in the MIVA match 25-21, 25-19 and 25-16.

Lewis jumped out to an early 5-1 lead in the opening set as they recorded five kills on their first seven attack attempts. Quincy did not give up though and fought their way back into the match eventually tying the score at 13-13 after an error by the Flyers. The Hawks were tied again, at 14-14, after a kill from Steven Battaglia but were unable to take the lead with the serve. Lewis opened their lead back up to four points at 20-16 but Quincy closed the score to 21-19 as they picked up kills from Battaglia, Ryan Lehmann and Kyle Volstad. But that would be closest the Hawks would get, falling 25-21. The Hawks lost by four points in the set, the same amount of service errors they had. 

The two teams were even at the start of the second set with Quincy holding a short live 6-4 lead. The Hawks picked up kills from Joseph Ascher, Volstad, Battaglia, Lehmann and Sokol early on as their offense was clicking. But Lewis responded with three straight points to take the lead. Quincy trailed by just one, at 12-11 after a kill by Ascher, and held serve but again were unable to get beyond that point. Lewis opened the lead up after the Hawks failed opportunity, building a lead as large as five points and going on to a 25-19 win.

The third and final set was all Lewis as the Flyers hit .433 as a team compared to Quincy hitting just .185. Quincy hit .312 as a team in the match with 36 kills while Lewis hit .447 as a team with 48 kills and just 10 errors. The Hawks sideout percentage continually went down as the match went on going from 62-percent to 60-percent and finally 50-percent while Lewis' sideout percentage remained in the 70-percent range for the entire match. 

Quincy was led by a trio of players as Ryan Lehmann, Kyle Volstad and Steven Battaglia each recorded eight kills. Andrew Ouano finished with 35 assists in the match. Quincy is now 6-6 overall and falls to 0-3 in the MIVA.