Langhorne, PA - Marymount University visited Cairn University on Friday evening and defeated the Highlanders in three sets (24-26, 23-25, 16-25) in CVC men's volleyball action. The Highlanders went into the game looking confident that they would be able to win their first conference match this season, but they will have to work for it another day.
Cairn took an early 8-3 lead in the first set thanks to a run with
Micah Godshall at the service line. That run forced a timeout by the Saints and following it they came back to within two at 9-7. The Highlanders' next run gave them a 12-7 lead and sustained them for most of the opening set.
The Saints eventually came back to tie the match at 20-20 and then took their first lead of the game at 23-22 on a solo block by Ben Steranka. Godshall tied the match at 23-23 with a kill; the Highlanders tied the match again at 24-24 on a Saints error. However, Marymount's TJ Wiechecki secured the final two kills for the Saints and they won the first set 26-24.
Josiah Buss led the team for Cairn with 12 kills on 32 attempts.
Dan Winters also played a good match out of the middle position with six kills on 13 attempts. Buss also led the team in digs with nine, while
Alex Lower collected 25 assists.
The second set proved even tougher for the Highlanders, as they had to work back from an early 6-1 deficit throughout the set. Cairn found themselves down 14-6 at one point but were then able to rally with a 9-3 run, getting the score up to 17-15. This run was helped out by four attacking errors by Wiechecki; two of those errors were solo blocks by Buss and
Ryan Garven.
The Highlanders later got to within one at 22-21 but could not get ahead of the Saints in the second set. Despite 10 attacking errors by Marymount, they went on to win 25-23 in the second set.
In the third set, Cairn simply committed too many attacking errors to gain any momentum on the Saints. Five out of the Highlanders' 14 errors were blocks by Marymount. In total, the Saints had 21 block assists in the match with one block solo. The Highlanders responded with 13 block assists for the game.
With the 25-16 loss in the third set, Cairn dropped to 7-10 overall and 0-6 in the conference this season. Marymount improved to 3-9 overall and 1-3 in the CVC for 2015. The Highlanders will next travel to New Jersey City University this Wednesday, Feb. 25, for a match at 7 p.m.
