HARTSVILLE, S.C. — It was all the Lincoln Memorial University men's volleyball team from the get-go Friday night and the Railsplitters never let up as they powered to a 3-0, 25-19, 25-18, 25-20, sweep victory inside the DeLoach Center for their fourth straight win.
Jordan Walley led LMU (14-7) in the Independent Volleyball Association matchup as the senior used a .625 hitting percentage for 12 kills and 13 points. Junior
Evan Cory followed with 10 kills, 14.5 points plus six digs and the same amount of blocks. Behind seven total blocks,
Pedro Carvalho led the Railsplitters from that capacity while
AJ Risavy paced the team with 28 assists. Five players had a service ace —
Dawson Walker,
Nico Triana, Cory, Risavy and
Logan Kerley — to lead the match with five compared to the Cobras' three.
Coker (5-12) was paced by Joao Victor Santos with his 11 kills and 12 points, while Manuel Hernandez and Absalon Williams had nine kills apiece. Hernandez had four digs to Gabriel Castro and Seth Miller's team-high five, while Castro, Santos and Brandon Ravelo had one of the Coker's three aces. Coker only had two total blocks to the Railsplitters' 23, and Ravelo had a match-high 30 assists.
After LMU used a 5-0 run — via a kill from Triana, Cory and Walley plus two of Coker's 23 attack errors — to begin the match, the Railsplitters never took their foot off the pedal. The Cobras made a push, matching the same run to come with two (15-13) of LMU, but the Railsplitters used multiple two-point spurts behind their .462 hitting percentage compared to the Cobras' .125 to get back in front for good.
In the second set, Coker scored the first point via a kill from Santos, but then LMU pushed across a 4-0 run thanks to a Cory kill, Kerley's service ace and a pair of Coker errors. It was two more Cobra miscues and a Carvalho kill that gave LMU another run — this one for three straight — to go up 14-8 on the home team. Coker came within six points (16-11), but the Cobras were never able to string together more than two points at a time, due to a poor .071 hitting clip, as the Railsplitters were thanks to their sizzling .500 hitting percentage to take the 2-0 match lead.
The third and final set saw more runs, and the Cobras able to score a trio at a time three times to even take the lead, but the Railsplitters were one up on them. It was a 4-0 run LMU used to go up 9-5 early before allowing Coker to come back and knot it twice. However, the Cobras weren't able to re-take the lead again as the Railsplitters rattled off the last seven of nine points to secure the match behind Walley's 12th and final kill.
