ST. LOUIS – [BOX SCORE SAU] [BOX SCORE CIU] The Missouri Baptist men's volleyball remained undefeated at home and undefeated in the Spartan Invitational against No. 6-ranked-St. Ambrose (Iowa) and No. 3-ranked-Concordia Unviersity – Irvine (Calif.) on Friday.      

First up for the Spartans (16-5, 4-0) was St. Ambrose University. The Bees trailed Missouri Baptist for the entirety of set one, but were close enough to push MBU past 25. Though the Bees pushed back the Spartans came out with the 26-24 advantage to take set one.

Set two proved two evenly matched teams with 26 ties in the set. The back and forth banter between teams pushed both teams past the normal 25 points as Missouri Baptist clinched the second set 29-27.

The Spartans started off with an early lead in the third set but St. Ambrose pushed MBU back to take the set 25-18.

The game continued to get tense in the fourth set producing 21 ties. Trading the lead back and forth, the teams again found themselves pushing past 25.

Sean Benedict came-up big with a crucial play in the set. Benedict held for two blocks in a row and came back for the kill to put MBU at game point. After an attacking error on the part of SAU, the Spartans won the set 28-26 to close out the game for a 3-1 victory.

In game two Concordia played the Spartans close in all three sets but in the end the Spartans came out on top 25-21 to sweep the Eagles in three sets.

MBU held Concordia to a 0.071 attack percentage in set one. In set two the Spartans put the pressure on and held the Eagles to seven kills with a 0.000 attack percentage.

Chris Flood set a new career high in kills (20) against St. Ambrose as well as posting 34 kills on the day and 4.86 kills per set. Mico Janicijevic right behind Flood posted 29 kills on the day for 4.14 kills per set. Setter Kyle Foley led the Spartan offense with 90 assists and 12.86 assists per set.

Missouri Baptist will continue play in the Spartan Invitational tomorrow (March 21) at 9:00 a.m. against No. 10-ranked Lourdes University and at 3:00 p.m. against No. 5-ranked Grand View University.

Tournament scores:

Court 1

MBU defeated St. Ambrose 3-1

Concordia defeated Park University 3-2

MBU defeated Concordia 3-0

Court 2

Park defeated Grand View 3-2

Lourdes defeated St. Ambrose 3-0

Lourdes defeated Grand View 3-0