ADRIAN, Mich. -- The Siena Heights men's volleyball team suffered a 3-1 loss to Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) rival Lourdes on Wednesday evening. The Saints (13-5, 7-4 WHAC) are locked into a battle with Aquinas and Goshen for the third and fourth spots in the conference standings, with only three matches remaining in the regular season.
Ramon Matos tallied 21 kills on the evening for SHU. This is just the fourth time Matos has recorded 20+ kills in a match this season. Alex Garavalia finished with seven kills on the night, while Shevin Blades had six. Zak Tucker paced play with 39 assists while earning two service aces and helping defensively with four digs and three blocks. Joudiel Poveymirow had a team-high ten digs, while Jakob Pickett led the effort at the net with four blocks.
Siena Heights surrendered two points to Lourdes before using a 4-0 run to take the lead early in the opening set. Two more points by the Grey Wolves tied things at four each before the visitors used bursts of points to build a four-point advantage, 11-7. That lead would be maintained through the middle portion of the set until a 3-0 run pushed the advantage to seven, 21-14, and forced a timeout from the Saints. Garavalia registered a kill to cut the margin to six points, but four-straight scores for Lourdes ended the first with a 1-0 lead for the Grey Wolves.
Lourdes had the early advantage in the second with the set's first three points. Siena Heights remained in the fight, eventually tying the score at seven before Matos got a kill to give SHU an 8-7 lead. Both teams jostled for the advantage for the next few plays before the Grey Wolves tallied three-straight for a 12-10 edge. SHU rallied and tied the score at 14 before taking the lead on the next play. Trading points again kept things tight up to a final tie at 18 points. SHU's back-to-back hitting errors gave Lourdes a 20-18 lead before the Grey Wolves completed a 4-0 run to move ahead by four. A service error brought Siena Heights within three points of tying, but Lourdes took the 2-0 lead with a 25-20 decision.
The visitors jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the third, but SHU battled back to eventually tie the score at 11 with a service ace from Tucker. Two more points for the Saints earned a 13-11 lead, which Lourdes erased with a 3-0 run that flipped the score to 15-14 in favor of the visitors and forced SHU to take a timeout. Matos rattled a kill out of the break to tie the score. A few plays later, Blades put Siena Heights ahead 17-16 with a kill. A 3-0 run ended with a block from Tucker and Pickett as the Saints recaptured the lead, 20-19, on the way to a 25-23 win in the third.
A 6-0 start to the third put SHU in a hole that the team couldn't climb out of as the Grey Wolves took the match with a 25-15 victory in the fourth set.
Up Next
The Saints hit the road for a WHAC matchup against Lawrence Tech this Saturday, March 19, at 3:00 p.m. That is the first in two-straight road matches before SHU ends the regular season at home next week.
