DUE WEST, S.C. — What a way to end the regular season.
The Flying Fleet avoided the match sweep on its Senior Night Friday inside Belk Arena with a set three victory, but the rest of the evening was in the Lincoln Memorial University men's volleyball team's hands. The Railsplitters took advantage of 30 Erskine attack errors and cruised to a 3-1, 25-17, 25-14, 21-25, 25-18, victory for the season sweep and a new program-record 16th win to cap off the regular season in Due West, S.C.
The victory also marked the Railsplitters' sixth straight before they head into the Independent Volleyball Association Tournament April 12-13 inside Mary Mars Gym.
As usual,
Evan Cory paced LMU (16-7) on the court, securing a team-high 15 kills, 11 digs and five blocks.
Logan Kerley was next with nine kills and six digs, while
Dawson Walker added seven more kills and
Johansen Negron had six.
Pedro Carvalho totaled four blocks, as did Walker, and
AJ Risavy dominated on assists with 44 plus eight digs.
Jordan Walley had three of the Railsplitters' service aces while Cory and Carvalho had one apiece.
For the Flying Fleet (7-18), Lancy Aldebol led his squad with 15 kills and 12 digs while Keegan Sullivan had eight kills and Josh Arrowood added seven. Griffin Spence had a team-high 34 assists and contributed seven digs with Hector Collazo's 11 digs and Arrowood's 10 digs ahead of him. Spence had the team's lone service ace and Sullivan had a team-high three blocks.
Six of
Logan Kerley's kills and a stout .458 hitting percentage powered the Railsplitters to a commanding 1-0 match victory. It helped the visitors that the home squad committed 10 errors, which led to four points of the Railsplitters' early 5-0 run to take the 8-3 lead. Erskine battled back, coming within a point (12-13), but LMU shut it down quick. The Railsplitters ripped off an 8-0 spurt — thanks to three attack errors, a pair of Kerley kills, a Carvalho ace and a kill from Cory and
Danny Hermida — to go up 21-12 and put the opening set away for good.
The Railsplitter runs continued into the second set as LMU used a pair of 5-0 runs, plus a 6-0 spurt, to grab ahold of the advantage. The 16-point swing was assisted by seven Erskine attack errors, two bad sets, five kills and a pair of service aces from Walley. The last run for six straight points was the finishing touches as the Railsplitters went up 24-14 and allowed just one more point before Walker solidified the 2-0 match lead.
After combining for 19 errors in the first two sets, the home team settled down on its Senior Night. Erskine had just two errors, plus a .520 attack percentage after having a negative clip in the previous two to cut the deficit to just one. The Railsplitters were far from bad in the third set, having just four errors of their 11 total, but their .312 hitting percentage wasn't enough to the Flying Fleet's sizzling .500-plus.
The error bug caught up to Erksine again in the fourth set as the Flying Fleet had 10 more and just a .054 attack percentage. On the other hand, the Railsplitters, who finished with a .348 clip compared to the Flying Fleet's .097, bounced back in a big way, hitting .414 with just two errors of 14 of their 50 match kills. Each time the Flying Fleet attempted to threaten LMU, Erskine just bit itself again with a miscue as the Railsplitters capitalized time-and-time again to secure the season sweep and match victory.
