Chicago, Illinois - The Fleet come away with a 0-3 loss to the 2015 National Champion and currently 6
th ranked, Loyola University Ramblers.
The first set was back and forth the entire time. One of the key moments of the match was when the Fleet trailed the Ramblers by one until
Omar Melendez put up a great dig that was then followed by several rallies back and forth until
Mike Michelau got the kill to make it 15-15 and forced Head Coach, Mark Hulse to call the matches first time out. Loyola had two kills to Erskine's one by
Omar Melendez to force Coach Tallman to call the Fleet's first time out as Loyola led the match 18-16.
Mike Michelau got the first kill out of the timeout with a great set from
David Grandy, but from there the Fleet allowed the Ramblers to take the largest lead of the match by rolling off four straight points due to several unforced errors.
There was no more than a two point lead by either team until 18-17 when the Ramblers rolled off four straight points, three of them being unforced errors from the Fleet. Although the Fleet started off the match looking strong offensively as they ended the first set hitting .375 as a team.
Although the Fleet scored the first point and kept the 2
nd set close, the Ramblers held the momentum for the remainder of the next two sets winning 25-20, 25-12. The Fleet, who had 22 hitting errors to the 33 kills as a team, fell short offensively this evening to the Ramblers who only had a total of 2 errors to their 39 kills. Erskine also trailed Loyola defensively with only one block to their 12.5 blocks.
The Fleet were led by Melendez and Michelau who both made it into double digits with 10 kills each followed by
Neal Stanley who contributed 7 kills for the match. Setter,
David Grandy, had 24 assists and five digs and Libero,
Michael Schneck helped the team defensively with 5 assists and 5 digs.
The Fleet (1-2; 0-0) continue non-conference play on the road with the 2015 National Champion Runner-up and currently 9th ranked, Lewis University Flyers (3-4; 0-0), tomorrow night at 7pm (CST) in Romeoville, Illinois.
Live Video:
http://www.lewisflyers.com/watch/?Live=325Live Stats:
http://sidearmstats.com/lewisu/mvball/
