CANTON, Mo. – The No. 11-ranked Missouri Baptist University men's volleyball team needed a bounce-back win after this weekend's trip to Iowa and got it in the form of a sweep at Culver-Stockton (0-4, 0-3 HEART) on Tuesday afternoon. MBU hung tough in a closely contested first frame before opening the floodgates in Sets 2 & 3. The Spartans (5-2, 2-2 HEART) completed its fourth sweep of the season with a 25-23, 25-16, 25-17 victory inside of C-SC's Charles Field House.
The hosts from Canton, Missouri had the Spartans fighting from behind in the opening set, particularly after an 8-1 run by the Wildcats to take an early 10-6 lead. Culver-Stockton's Ashe and Akeel Oxley did the most damaged combining for nine of the Wildcats' 10 kills in the set. No. 11 Missouri Baptist had to chip away at a three-point margin later in the set and trailed as late as the 22-21 mark. Luckily, the Spartans had more left in the tank in the final stretch and outscored C-SC 4-1 to end the set.
Carrying the momentum over into Set Two, MoBap came out guns blazing and jumped out a sizable 7-1 advantage. After an error-ridden first set with eight attack errors, the Spartans cleaned things up and hit .450% in the second (11 K, 2 E, 20 TA). On the other side of the net, the Wildcats had their lowest hitting percentage of the match (.074) making way to a 25-16 set win for the Spartans.
In the third and final set, Culver-Stockton stuck around in the earlygoing because of six MBU errors at the service line, however, the Spartans redeemed themselves with a flawless performance on attack. No. 11 Missouri Baptist one-upped its offensive performance from the previous set with 18 kills and zero attack errors for a .667 hitting percentage. The outside hitter combo of
Miljan Kastratovic and
Auston Bonte joined forces for 12 of the 18 kills.
The two outsides paced the Spartans for the match as well, finishing with 14 and 12 kills, respectively. In addition to the match-best 14 kills and .560 attack percentage, Kastratovic also added five digs, three blocks, two assists and a service ace. Freshman setter
David Rudic led the team in both assists (32) and digs (7) and was one of two Spartans to hit a perfect 1.000% with three kills on three swings. Middle blocker
Gabe Norsigian also hit 1.000% with four kills while serving up a team-high two service aces and two blocks.
With tomorrow's match at Maryville University postponed due to weather, MBU's next scheduled match as of now is for Friday, Feb. 11. The Spartans are set to host a doubleheader on Feb. 11 welcoming Central Christian College (Kan.) and Heart of America opponent Clarke University to SRC at 4 and 7 p.m.
