Box Score The Dominican University men's volleyball team picked up its first win in front of the Stars' home crowd, posting a five-set (15-25, 25-19, 25-21, 24-26, 15-10) victory over the visiting St. Xavier University Cougars on Tuesday night in the Igini Sports Forum.

Jeremy Royko (Naperville, Ill.) paced the Stars' offensive attack with ten kills on 33 swings while setters David DeMarco (Downers Grove, Ill.) and Joe Marchese (Orland Park, Ill.) ran Dominican's 6-2 offense, dishing out 17 and 13 assists respectively.

After dropping the first set with a -.143 hitting percentage, the Stars' offense sprang to life trailing 7-11 in the second set. Robert Mead (Darien, Ill.) rattled off an ace ahead of a kill by Adam Janusz (Channahon, Ill.) to pull Dominican within one, 10-11. After a Cougars' sideout, Mason Solbrig (Lake Villa, Ill.) stepped back to serve 11 points, including four aces to put the Stars on top 22-12. The Cougars answered with a quick four-point run before Aidan Spangler (Western Springs, Ill.) halted the comeback with a kill and the Stars eventually closed out the set on a Cougars' service error.

The Stars offense continued to click in the third set, as Dominican posted a match-best .333 hitting percentage with ten kills to just three errors on 21 swings in the third set. Zachery Sinn (Winfield, Ill.) tallied four of his eight kills on the night in the third set to pace the Stars as Dominican to a 2-1 lead in the match.

The Cougars evened the score in the fourth set, pulling out a 26-24 victory, scoring the final three points of the set after Dominican got to set point (24-23) on an ace by DeMarco.

In the decisive fifth set, the teams traded points all the way to 7-7 before back-to-back errors by the Cougars gave the Stars a 9-7 advantage. Then, after a Cougars' sideout, Dominican got back-to-back-to-back kills by Sinn, Royko and Janusz to open a 12-8 advantage and never looked back.

The Stars hit just .098 on the match but posted 18.0 total blocks. Spangler was in on eight total blocks with one solo and seven assists. Janusz finished with seven block assists while Sinn tallied one solo and six assists. Royko rounded out the team's first double-double effort, sharing team-high honors with Brooks Nevrly (Downers Grove, Ill.) with 12 digs apiece.

The win improves the Stars to 2-3 on the season with the Lakeland College Muskies coming to the Igini Sports Forum on Friday afternoon. The match is slated for a 4:00 p.m. start.