ST. LOUIS – [BOX SCORE GVU] [BOX SCORE SAU] The Missouri Baptist men's volleyball team split on day two of the Fighting Bee Classic with a 3-2 win against No. 5 St. Ambrose and a 2-3 loss to No. 2 Grand View on Saturday.
The Spartans started the day off with Grand View University. After a 3-0 loss the last time the teams met, MBU looked to upset the No. 2 ranked Vikings.
Although things looked good for MBU in the first set with a 25-13 win, Grand View came back in the second and third sets to take a one set advantage. Missouri Baptist didn't give into the Grand View attack as they took the fourth set from the Vikings to send the game to five sets. MBU kept the score close but fell just three points short of pulling off the upset.
Missouri Baptist faced No. 5 ranked St. Ambrose immediately following the game against Grand View. The Spartans created a four point lead over the Bees to get things going. However, St. Ambrose found their way back to tie the score at 10. A back and forth battle ensued until St. Ambrose took the lead at 29-28 and posted a kill to put the Bees up one set.
The battle continued into the second set, as each team took the lead and the other came back to tie the score. St. Ambrose held the upper hand in the end with another game point kill by Jamie Schnittker.
Missouri Baptist came back in the third set with a new fire. The Spartans held the lead for the entirety of the set and Mico Janicijevic notched the final point of the set.
The fourth set started out rough for MBU as the Bees held the lead for the first part of the set. Missouri Baptist stayed close and took the lead with a score of 10-9 and capitalized on the lead to take the set 25-19.
With another rocky start, the Spartans came from behind to take the fifth set with a final kill from Mico Janicijevic to win the game three sets to two.
Janicijevic posted a total of 42 kills in the two games with Chris Flood on his heels with 40 kills of his own. Janicijevic also posted a new career high of 14 digs against St. Ambrose. Shane Welch posted a hitting percentage of 0.560 on the day with 14 kills.
Kyle Foley matched his career high in assists against St. Ambrose with 66 total assists and 13.2 assists per set. The freshman also set a new career high of five kills against Grand View. Robert Hall also set a new career high. The Libero posted 11 digs against St. Ambrose.
The Spartans will return home to face Quincy University on Monday, March 30. MBU will also be honoring their four seniors that night: Shane Welch, Kevin Knight, Alex Navatto, and Josh Williams.
