March 26, 2011

The Quincy University had a contrasting pair of wins at home on Saturday, sweeping Milwaukee School of Engineering in the first match and needed a come from behind effort for a 3-2 win in their second match of the day but in the end it gave the Hawks their 17th win of the season, tying for second most in a season in program history. 

The Hawks and nearby rival Hannibal-LaGrange took midcourt in the final match of day and it was Quincy striking first winning 25-21 in the opening set. However the Trojans answered back with 25-14 and 25-23 wins in the next two sets. Quincy evened the match up with a 25-23 win in the fourth set and edged out a 16-14 win in the fifth set.

With the match tied at 1-1 and Quincy on the come back in the third set the Hawks could have folded when a call went against them but did not. Quincy was trailing by as many as four points late in the third set but for a moment looked like they had tied the set up at 22-22 on a Steven Battaglia block however the Hawks were called for in the net, giving the point and serve back to the Trojans. Quincy did eventually tied the set up at 23-23 but committed an untimely service error and then an attack error to give the Trojans the edge in the set and match.

However after their late mistakes in the third set and dropping two sets in a row the Hawks did not give up and instead came storming out in the fourth set as they scored the first four points. Quincy led the entire set and tied the match up at 2-2 when Kyle Volstad stuffed an attack by the Trojans.

Quincy took the lead from the start in the fifth and final set but was never able to shake the Trojans. In fact after leading by as many as three points Quincy allowed Hannibal-LaGrange to tie the score at 14-14 and hold serve. But the Hawks ran a play for Volstad who buried his shot after a pass from Andrew Ouano and Joseph Ascher finally sent the crowd home with a service ace on the next play. 

Quincy hit .229 in the match with 62 kills while Hannibal-LaGrange hit .264 with 55 kills. Ryan Lehmann led the way with 16 kills while Joseph Ascher added 14 kills and Steven Battaglia and Joseph Sokol each added 12 kills. Andrew Ouano finished with 51 assists while Tanner Wright added 12 digs. 

The first match of the day saw Quincy roll through the Raiders of MSOE by the scores of 25-16, 25-22 and 25-18. Quincy hit .369 in the match with 42 kills and just 11 errors with Battaglia and Sokol each leading the team with 10 kills while Ouano finished with 36 assists.

Quincy improves to 17-9 on the season, matching the second most wins in a season in program history. They return to action on Monday night with a match at home against King College at 7 p.m.