ST. LOUIS –[BOX SCORE] The No. 1-ranked Missouri Baptist men's volleyball team opened up tournament play in the 2015 National Invitational against No. 6-ranked Cardinal Stritch University with a 3-0 (25-17, 25-22, 25-23) sweep of the Wolves on Thursday afternoon.
In set one, the Spartans (27-8, 8-1) started things off with Chris Flood at the line for a three-point run to get things started. MBU held strong and maintained its momentum through the set as Flood toed the service line yet again. The team produced kill after kill with setter Kyle Foley finding the hitters at just the right moment and kept Flood at the line for seven consecutive serves. MBU held up a strong offensive push to close out the match with an eight-point advantage.
Missouri Baptist carried over the momentum from the first set and continued to find the floor. Due to a Stritch service error, the Spartans regained the serve to put Shane Welch at the service line. The team kept the Massachusetts native at the service line to gain a five-point lead and held it for the remainder of the set on the way to a 25-22 victory.
Determined to take a set from the No.1-ranked Spartans, Cardinal Stritch came back in set three with a new approach. Stritch took the lead from MBU right off the bat and held that lead until the home team tied the score at 18. MBU regained its footing soon after and pushed toward the win. Outside hitter Mico Janicijevic slammed the final point down for the 25-23 victory in game three and the 3-0 match win.
The Spartans held the Wolves to a negative hitting percentage in the first two sets for a combined nine kills.
Janicijevic led the Spartans with 15 kills and an attack percentage of 0.419. Welch posted an outstanding hitting percentage of 0.778 with seven kills off of nine total attempts and zero errors as well as four blocks. Libero Robert Hall held for a strong defense effort and posted 13 digs in the match. Sean Benedict was a wall at the net with five block in the game.
MBU will take the court again at 7 p.m. against the No. 3-ranked St. Ambrose University for their second pool play game of the day.
