ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– One week after beating the Widener University Pride in five sets in Chester, Eastern University Men's Volleyball dropped the return leg in five. The Eagles had a 12-8 lead in the fifth set, but the Pride scored seven of the final eight points of the match to earn a 15-13 win.
Eastern (1-7) won the opening set 25-23, before seeing a 17-14 lead slip away in the second. Even so, the Eagles led 23-22 and were poised to grab a two-set lead before the visitors took advantage of a serving error to spark a three-point run and a 25-23 win.
After Widener won the third set 25-20, the Eagles pounded out 14 kills in the fourth set and seemed to grab momentum back with a 25-15 win in the fourth.
Foster Lobb had seven of his team-high 13 kills in the set.
Justin Flor closed out the set at the service line. After
Trey Miller picked up a kill on a scramble play, Lobb pounded out an ace. After an attack error from the guests,
Lucas Adam buried the final point to sent the match to a fifth set.
Though the fifth set started out with an Eastern service error, the Eagles grabbed momentum back with a
Gabe Perez kill and a pair of
Foster Lobb aces. Back-to-back kills from Flor and a Widener attack error put the Eagles up 6-2 early. The Eagles held that lead all the way to 12-8. The Pride earned a point witha kill and then scored on an Eastern error before putting up a big block to close the gap to 12-11. Lobb delivered a kill for 13-11 lead. The Pride scored the final four points of the match to claim the win.
Widener had only four kills in the final set. The Eagles had eight attack errors and a service error in the final set and 39 attack errors in the match.
"When you make that many errors," Coach
Randy Syracuse said, "You can be happy you are in a 5th set, but you still aren't going to win too many matches. Our inexperience showed tonight as we were unable to finish sets after holding what should have been comfortable leads."
"It was my mistake to schedule the doubleheader against Stevens the night before." He continued. "Though all due credit goes to Widener, fatigue definitely played a factor.
Trey Miller played with great energy all match. We got some quality swings and blocks from Gabe. He played his best match of the season. There were many quality plays by the rest of the team. Just not enough of them at critical times to claim the victory."
Flor finished with 10 kills, ten digs, and 20 assists. Miller and Pha each had 11 digs, and
Lucas Adam had 13. Perez had five kills and five blocks.
Matt Blaum led Widener (1-7) with 14 kills.
The Eagles will play a doubleheader at Messiah on Saturday.
