The Dominican University men's volleyball team will play in the conference tournament for the third straight season after knocking off the Aurora University Spartans in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) semifinal round on Friday evening in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 3-0 (25-23, 25-19, 25-20).  With the win the Stars improve to 19-10 on the season and will look to punch their ticket to the NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship tournament with a win over the top-seeded MSOE Raiders on Saturday evening.
 
"We certainly are looking forward to tomorrow night," said Dan Pawlikowski, the Stars' head coach, following the win. "We didn't earn any style points tonight but are very happy to advance. Credit to Aurora for making it a very difficult match at times—it really was a strange match as far as momentum. We couldn't control the first set, went up huge in the second only to let up and had to fight back in the third set to earn the sweep."
 
The Stars hit just .126 in the win but managed to slow the Spartans to a .082 attack percentage with eight blocks and 46 digs to force 20 Aurora attack errors.  Dominican also limited any Aurora runs, going 43-for-64 on sideouts for the match.
 
Ethan Klosak paced the Stars attack, knocking down 12 kills on 27 swings while committing just four errors.  The junior preseason All-American set the tone in the first set, knocking down five kills on just eight swings and then helped put the match on ice with four kills in the third set.
 
Jake Sidner added seven kills on 19 attack attempts while Adam Eboli tallied five kills on 14 attacks.  Jack McGuire ran the offense, collecting 27 assists as the Stars knocked down 31 kills on 95 attack attempts.
 
Defensively, the Stars' block helped slow the Spartans.  McGuire collected five block assists while Eboli picked up four.  In the back row, Klosak rounded out a double-double with 12 digs while libero Bregin DeMarco collected a match-high 16 digs.
 
The Stars and Raiders, the top two seeds in the 2019 NACC Tournament, are set to square off at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday at Hotchkin Arena in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The winner will receive the NACC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III national tournament.