ST. LOUIS- Tonight the Spartans returned to the court on Missouri Baptist's campus to take on the Vikings of Missouri Valley College. In the two teams' previous meeting, February 18, MBU took down Missouri Valley in three games. Tonight, the Spartans took home the win 3-1.
Missouri Baptist was lead from the beginning by the outstanding play of senior outside hitter, Clayton Baker. Baker had an attack percentage of .571 with four kills in the first set. MBU finished the first set with an impressive attack percent of .500 compared to the Vikings .172. The Spartans took set one, 25-20.
The second set saw a much stronger Missouri Valley team. MVC turned around to out-attack the Spartans .389 compared to .250. Jacob Haar contributed five kills on six swings for the Vikings. Again for the Spartans, Baker led the team with four kills. After the Vikings took the lead early in game two, the MBU was not able to gain control of the set. The Vikings defeated Missouri Baptist 25-19.
The Spartans came back to fight in set three. Freshman outside hitter, Mico Janicijevic was at the head of the Spartan attack, finishing with four kills. Missouri Valley looked to Lucas Wurr as their offensive leader, whom added four kills. The Spartans managed to keep the Vikings attack percentage at just a .091, while the Spartans hit .550 themselves. The Spartans took set three, 25-19.
The fourth set saw a much more dominating Missouri Baptist team. The team had 4 blocks compared to Missouri Valley's 1. Janicijevic and Baker combined for eight kills on the outside for the Spartans. MBU never lost their momentum and ended up beating the Viking 25-15.
The Spartans had multiple players step up tonight. Janicijevic ended the night with 14 kills while Baker added 13. Middle blocker Kevin Knight added nine kills with zero errors for an impressive attack percentage of .750, along with four blocks. Shane Welch, the Spartans other middle blocker, added eight kills of his own and two blocks. MBU finished the night with 52 kills and an attack percentage of .402 compared to MVC's 41 kills and .156 attack percentage. The Vikings offense was led by Jacob Haar. Haar added 15 kills for Missouri Valley while Lucas Wurr chipped in 12 of his own. Missouri Baptist out blocked MVC 12 blocks to one.
The Spartans return to action Friday and Saturday on Missouri Baptist's campus to host the Spartan Invitational. MBU plays at noon and 6PM Friday night, as well as 11AM and 3PM on Saturday.
