The Dominican University men's volleyball team, ranked seventh in the AVCA Men's Division III Top 15 Preseason Poll, opened the season with a dominating three-set (25-6, 25-17, 25-19) win over the St. Xavier University Cougars to open the 2018 season on Friday night at the Igini Sports Forum.
 
"It was a great team effort tonight," commented Dominican University head coach Dan Pawlikowski, who picked up his first career victory with the win. "I thought we had excellent energy and good communication, which was a focus for us the past week of practice. We also talked about winning the serve/pass game and both Ethan [Klosak] and Luke [Spicer] had impressive runs from the line tonight. As a collective we handled the serve very well too. Nice start to the season."
 
During the opening set, the Stars rattled off the first seven points of the night and later scored 12 straight in cruising to a 25-6 opening set victory.  Dominican hit .500 in the first set, paced by Nick Timreck and Luke Spicer who knocked down four kills each on five swings apiece.  Defensively, David DeMarco collected eight of his match-high 12 kills in the opening set and the Stars' posted 5.0 blocks in holding the Cougars to a -.286 hitting percentage in the frame.
 
Similar to the first set, Dominican never trailed in the second after scoring the set's first four points.  St. Xavier managed seven kills in the set, but Dominican forced eight Cougars' hitting errors with six blocks and 12 digs.  Add in the Stars' 11 kills and three aces in the set and Dominican took the second set 25-17.
 
The Cougars led for the first time on the night in the third set, but Dominican used a five-point run to turn a 12-11 deficit into a 16-12 lead and never looked back.  Junior middle Adam Eboli turned it up in the clinching set, knocking down five of his eight kills for the match in the final set and a pair of block assists. 
 
Dominican balanced offensive attack saw Spicer knock down a match-high nine kills on 15 swings, hitting .333 for the night.  Eboli added eight kills while Ethan Klosak and Timreck collected seven kills apiece in the winning effort.  As a team, the Stars hit .347, committing just 11 errors on the night.
 
For the Cougars, Jake Olson and Thomas Matonis tallied four kills apiece but as a team, St. Xavier managed to hit just -.067 in the losing effort.
 
Dominican posted 15.0 total blocks on the night, including eight block assists for Timreck and seven for sophomore Jake Sidner.
 
The Stars, 1-0 on the year, return to action next Friday, hosting Augustana College and Trinity Christian College for a tri-match starting at noon.