ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– Eastern University Men's Volleyball dropped a tough four-set decision to the visiting Messiah University Falcons in the Middle Atlantic Conference Opener for both teams. Again playing with a reconfigured line-up, the Eagles split the opening two sets before the Falcons found their offensive rhythm and pulled away late.
Rodney Quarles led the Eagles with 13 kills.
Early on, the Eagles did great work to keep balls alive and led for much of the opening set.
Lucas Adam buried a kill for a 22-20 lead in the frame. The Falcons, however, got a sideout kill from veteran middle hitter Ryan Givens and reeled off three points to take the lead. Eastern earned a sideout to close to within a point, but Messiah again found Givens to claim the opening set, 25-23,
Messiah hit .481 in the first set, but led by Quarles with five terminations, the Eagles put away 13 kills and were outstanding in serve receive.
The two teams traded points for much of the second set as well, and again the Eagles surged late. This time, they went up 21-18 on a kill from Adams. The Falcons answered with five straight points to have set point in the second before the Eagles took advantage of a great dig from Jared Barch to earn a Quarles kill to sideout on set point. With Barch serving,
Symir Byrd buried a kill to fight off another set point. Setter
Chris Miller then combined on a beautiful quick combination with
Josiah Cash to give the Eagles a set point of their own. They did not waste the opportunity. Quarles put down his tenth kill of the match to even things up.
Messiah (8-5, 1-0) hit .449 over the final two sets to pull away. The Falcons, with several players who played in several rounds of last year's NCAA Tournament served aggressively and held the Eagles to just a .100 hitting percentage in the third set and a negative number in the fourth.
Max Bagileo had eight kills, and Byrd had five. Cash finished with three blocks. Miller had 24 assists and
Josh Hrabosky had 15.
Eastern (5-7, 0-1) is back in action on Thursday with another home game in the MAC. They will host King's College at 7:00 pm.
