The Dominican University men's volleyball team kept pace in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC), sweeping the Concordia University Chicago Cougars (25-15, 25-17, 25-20) at the Igini Sports Forum before dropping a non-conference, five-set battle with the MIT Engineers (26-24, 23-25, 27-25, 18-25, 15-12). The split pushes the Stars to 16-10 overall while improving to 11-3 in conference play.
"It was another important day for our men's volleyball program," said Dan Pawlikowski, the Stars' head coach. "We earned a crucial conference win over an emerging CUC squad and then for the second time in as many days found ourselves locked in an all-out brawl. A big tip of the cap to MIT for being able to hang on and get the win. Overall, a very even match and we even ended upon the right side of a number of team statistics, just the wrong side of the score. A lot of positives to take away from both matches, and hopefully some good learning moments as well."
In the win over the Cougars, Dominican hit .278, collecting 40 kills on just 79 attack attempts. The Stars dominated nearly every statistical category, including serving five aces while surrendering just one ace to their neighborhood rivals.
Jack McGuire doled out 33 assists while utilizing ten different attackers.
Troy Kates paced the attack, hitting .467 with a team-high ten kills on just 15 swings.
Adrian Cebula finished with nine kills while
Nidhin Thomas chipped in eight while converting at a .429 clip.
Defensively, the Stars limited the Cougars to a .091 attack percentage while forcing the cougars into 19 errors, including seven Dominican blocks. Kates picked up four block assists while Thomas, McGuire and
Mat Molloy logged two apiece. In the back row, McGuire and Cebula shared team-high honors with seven digs apiece.
In the loss to MIT, the Stars edged the Engineers in hitting percentage, .295 to .281 with MIT knocking down 67 kills and the Stars managing 66. Dominican also posted 12 total blocks to MIT's ten and picked up nine more digs, 56-47.
Running the offense, McGuire doled out 56 assists to six different hitters.
Adam Eboli knocked down a match-high 19 kills, hitting .500 with just four errors on 30 total attempts.
Jake Sidner added 18 kills while
Ethan Klosak finished with 12 on 33 swings.
Defensively, McGuire and Klosak rounded out double-doubles with a team-high 14 and ten digs respectively, while Eboli, McGuire and
Patrick Bradford posted four total blocks apiece at the net.
Dominican will travel to Marian University for a 7:00 p.m. match in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, next Friday before closing out the 2019 regular season at Concordia Chicago next Saturday, April 6.
