ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– Eastern University Men's Volleyball dropped a pair of home matches to the Stevenson University Mustangs (12-3) to wrap up the regular season. Foster Lobb led the Eagles with 11 kills on the day.

"It was a tale of two teams today. We played so well the other day it left us feeling we were in a good position to compete with one of the top teams in the conference today, " Head Coach Randy Syracuse said of the match. "Instead we came out flat in the first set of the first match. Stevenson came in motivated to grab six points. They served tough and blocked well early. That coupled with a number of our mistakes and we were down big in a short time."

After spinning their wheels through the first set, the Eagles found a little momentum in the second and third sets of the opening match, but the Mustangs used an overpowering attack to win the opening match 3-0.

The Eagles dropped the first set of the second match but had a 21-20 lead in the second. The Mustangs earned a sideout and a point on serve to grab a 22-21 lead, but the Eagles found a sideout on a kill off the block from Lucas Adam. The two teams traded sideouts, but the visitors still had the upper hand and only needed one point on serve to close out the set. They found that point on a stuff block from Elliot De La Torre. Eastern hit .276 in the set, but the Mustangs more than matched that with a .448 hitting percentage.

After dropping the first five sets of the day, the Eagles could have been excused if they had rolled over in the sixth, but they did not. Down 14-7, the Eagles pieced together a two-point run followed by three 3-point runs to pull within a point at 20-19. Down a point, the Eagles would need something to get over the top and grab control of the set. To their credit, the Mustangs kept that thing from happening. The Eagles stayed within the one-point margin, but could not get the lead. Gabe Perez finished an overpass to give the Eagles a final sideout and pull to within 24-23, but the Mustangs ended the match with another stuff block.

"Darren Lopez and Gabe Perez displayed a strong presence at the net with some big blocks," Syracuse noted, "and Trey Miller and Foster Lobb were defending the court while Justin Flor also had some impressive digs and a few blocks along the way. We finished the day playing our type of volleyball. We put out max effort on every play and kept some balls alive that should probably have been down. Going 25-23 in the last two sets helps us feel better about the day. We finsihed much better than we started."

Lobb and Miller each had seven digs in the final match. Lopez had seven kills, six digs, and five blocks. Perez, playing in his final home match, had four kills and four blocks.

The Eagles will play at Widener in the first round of the MAC post-season tournament. The winner of that contest will play the winner of Misericordia and Wilkes. Stevenson earned the second seed in the MAC Championship Tournament. The Mustangs will host Stevens Institute of Technology.