The Dominican University men's volleyball team opened up their second season as a varsity program on Thursday evening, falling to the St. Xavier University Cougars in four sets (29-27, 23-25, 25-23, 25-23) on the road.
 
The Stars erased a 15-9 deficit before serving for set point three times in the opening set before St. Xavier's Sean Barry stepped back to serve back-to-back aces to claim the set for the Cougars.
 
In set two, the teams traded points all the way to 12-12 until Dominican's Jeremy Royko (Naperville, Ill.) stepped back to serve six straight points for the Stars who opened an 18-12 advantage.  The Cougars clawed all the way back to even the score at 22-22 and 23-23 before back-to-back kills for the Stars by Aidan Spangler (Western Springs, Ill.) and Nick Timreck (Downers Grove, Ill.) closed out the set for Dominican.
 
St. Xavier did not take its first lead in the third set until an ace by Sam Kull put the Cougars on top 17-16.  Dominican pulled back in front on back-to-back kills by Edvinas Karalius (Oak Lawn, Ill.).  The Stars led as late as 23-22 but the Cougars put away the last three points on the set on kills by Dan O'Keefe and Sean Barry sandwiched around an O'Keefe ace.
 
The fourth set followed a similar pattern with neither team holding more than a three-point lead and the Stars leading 23-22 before the Cougars put away the final three points of the set to take the match.
 
The Stars hit .264 in the match with 48 kills on 106 total swings, committing 20 errors while St. Xavier posted a .282 hitting percentage with 50 kills to 21 errors on 103 total attacks.
 
Zachery Sinn (Winfield, Ill.) and Royko paced the Stars' offensive attack with 14 and 11 kills respectively.  Spangler added eight kills on just ten swings for the Stars while Alex Coyne (Naperville, Ill.) ran the offense, collecting 38 assists.
 
"The team had moments of showing they can play at a high level," replied second-year head coach Dan Ames when asked about his team's performance.  "Unfortunately we were unable to sustain that throughout the match.  We were able to see that we have a good foundation for us to build upon as we move along in the season but we need to raise our level of play to stick with the competition we have on our schedule."
 
Dominican will return to action after a weekend of rest, traveling up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to take on the Cardinal Stritch University Crusaders on Tuesday.  The match is slated for a 7:00 p.m. first serve.