The Dominican University men's volleyball team opened a stretch of three matches in less than 24 hours on Friday night with a three-set sweep of the Aurora University Spartans (25-19, 25-19, 25-18) before falling five sets to the fourth-ranked Kean University Cougars (21-25, 25-14, 21-25, 26-24, 15-10). The Stars, ranked sixth in this week's AVCA Men's Division III Top 15 poll, return home to the Igini Sports Forum for a match with the Nazareth College Golden Flyers on Saturday at 2:00 p.m.
 
"That was a really fun day of volleyball," commented Dan Pawlikowski, the Stars' head coach, following the matches. "It would have been great to pull out the second match, but I thought we played focused and pretty clean against Aurora.  Against Kean, we did a great job of pushing them to the limit. We fought back after a really tough second set and went up 2-1.  We had opportunities to close out the match in the fourth set. I'm proud of the way we battled in both matches and the way we rallied as a group. It is a quick turnaround for tomorrow but we will be ready to go."
 
The Stars win against Aurora helped Dominican keep pace atop the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) standings with just one loss at 5-1.  Ethan Klosak and Jake Sidner shared match-high honors with 12 kills apiece as the Stars hit .315 in the winning effort.  Jack McGuire and Evan Ruffner shared setting duties, doling out 19 and 17 assists respectively as the Dominican attack knocked down 41 kills while committing just 13 errors on 89 swings.  Luke Spicer added seven kills despite playing in just two sets while Adrian Cebula and Zach Sinn collected two kills apiece in one set of work.
 
Defensively, the Stars limited Aurora to just an .022 attack percentage, forcing 20 errors with eight total blocks and 36 digs.  Patrick Bradford led the charge at the net with six block assists while Klosak, McGuire, Spicer and Troy Kates posted two block assists each.  In the back row, Klosak tallied a team-high eight digs while libero David DeMarco added seven digs.
 
In the five-set loss to Kean, the Stars tried to set the tone at the net, posting 15 blocks in the losing effort.  Nick Timreck and Adam Eboli tallied seven and six assisted blocks respectively while Spicer and McGuire collected five assisted blocks each.  Klosak tallied two solo blocks along with a block assists.  Despite all the blocks, the Cougars managed to out-hit the Stars, .263 to .188.
 
The Stars committed 23 attack errors while managing 47 kills on 128 swings.  Spicer collected a team-high 14 kills while Klosak added 13.  McGuire dished out 39 assists, using six different attackers.
 
In the back row, DeMarco finished with a match-high 15 digs.