BRISTOL, TENN. — This one stings.
 
The Lincoln Memorial University men's volleyball team entered this match never winning a set versus King University in four tries to winning two and narrowly falling to the Tornado in five sets 2-3, 25-19, 25-27, 25-27, 25-20, 13-15, Tuesday night in Bristol, Tenn.
 
For LMU (5-4), there were new season highs all across the board. Freshman Johansen Negron notched a new career-high in kills (18) and points (19), which was only second to Evan Cory, who also saw new season highs in digs (9), kills (26) and points (30.5). Danny Hermida had a Railsplitter career-high 11 digs, plus a third-team best 14 points, and AJ Risavy passed across a whopping 66 assists plus connected on his first service ace of the season, as did Negron.
 
Sean Kohlhase and Suetonius Harris led King (5-4) with 19 and 13 kills, respectively. Kohlhase had a team-high 21 points while Leo de Quadros paced the Tornado with 13 digs. JT Deppe had 49 assists.
 
Talk about an expectational start. The Railsplitters came into this match winless versus the Tornado, having lost the four matches — all in straight sets — over the last two seasons. So, it only was right that LMU got that streak out of its system.
 
In the first set, despite five errors to the Tornado's two, the Railsplitters secured their first ever set over King in impressive fashion. LMU hit a blistering .393 and used runs of two and three points at a time, while not allowing a Tornado run of three or more. The 16-kill set was paced by five from Jordan Walley and Cory each to snag the first set victory and 1-0 match lead.
 
The second set was much closer as the two in-state teams went back-and-forth. LMU had a chance to secure the set and a two-nil match lead twice, but the Railsplitters were unable to nail it down. Four straight Cory kills — sandwiched with one of the Railsplitters' seven errors — put LMU in the driver's seat; however, three more of those miscues from different Railsplitters gave King the narrow 27-25 win to even the match at 1-all.
 
It was almost like déjà vu in set No. 3. It was wire-to-wire once again, and came down to an LMU set point twice after Matt Bridenbaugh put down a service ace and Negron answered with a kill to go up, 24-23. The Tornado responding with a point, but Cory was there with a response, smacking down a kill to go up again. King then scored three straight to go up 2-1 and spoil the Railsplitters' impressive set, where they had a match-low errors (2) and a match-high hitting percentage (.593).
 
LMU wasn't quite done yet, and it helped that King's second .200-hitting set — the other being in a set-one loss — caught up to them again. Once Evan Cory tied set four at 16-all, the Railsplitters, who hit over .300 for the fourth consecutive set, scored five straight points to help propel them to a win and force a winner-take-all five No. 5.
 
The fifth set was what was to be expected. Risavy knotted the score at 7-all with a service ace, but then back-to-back LMU attack errors put the Tornado back in front again. The Railsplitters tied it up once more at 13 thanks to a King attack error; however, it slipped away quickly as Harris put down a kill and another attack error doomed LMU for good.
 
Up Next
The Railsplitters are back home for a pair of matches this weekend, hosting Coker at 7 p.m. Friday and Erskine at 2 p.m. Saturday.