GCU Drops 3-1 MIVA match to Loyola Chicago

Friday, March 23

GCU Arena

6 p.m.

Grand Canyon

14-10, 5-2

Loyola Chicago

14-10, 5-3

Loyola Chicago

Grand Canyon

Freshman middle hitter Ryan Mather had 10 kills and a .455 hitting percentage against Loyola Friday.

3/23/2012 8:32:00 PM | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

Grand Canyon lost the first of a two-match series against Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association foe Loyola Chicago at GCU Arena Friday.

The Antelopes lost 3-1 by set scores of 25-17, 25-18, 21-25, 25-20. The teams play again 6 p.m. Saturday at the Arena.

The loss drops Grand Canyon (14-10, 5-2) into second place in the MIVA behind Lewis (19-4, 5-1), a 3-0 winner over IPFW. Loyola (14-10, 5-3) is in third and just one-half game behind GCU.

The top team in the conference gets a first-round bye in the post season tournament. The top four teams host first-round games.

“Give credit to Loyola. They came out ready to play from the first point and we weren’t,” said GCU coach Jeremy Price. “They were an offensive juggernaut tonight. We didn’t stop them and we struggled with our sideout game.”

It was GCU’s first loss at the arena and only second loss at home this season.

The third set was GCU’s best. The Antelopes picked up their defensive performance with 3.5 blocks and held Loyola to a match-low .233 attack average. GCU hit .260 and had four kills from Jordon Tarantino (4-2-10) and three each from Taylor Galliano (3-0-7), Ben Ponnet (3-2-9) and Ryan Mather (3-0-6). There were nine ties in the set. GCU took the lead for good on a Tarantino kill at 19-18. It followed with points off a Rambler attack error, Ponnet kill and another Loyola hitting mistake.

The first two sets were too much to overcome.

Loyola hit .545 in the second set and scored 11 of the final 16 points. For GCU, Ponnet had four kills (4-1-7) for the set and Mather (3-0-5) added three.

Both teams had 13 first-set kills, but the Ramblers hit .522 (13-1-23) to Grand Canyon’s .258 (13-5-31). Loyola had an 83 percent sideout percentage (best of the match) to GCU’s match-low 58 percent. Loyola led most of the set. There were ties at 6-6 and 7-7, but no lead changes.

“We can’t start being ready to play at the beginning of the third set against a team like Loyola with the weapons they have,” Price said.
GCU’s middle hitters, Galliano and Mather had 11 and 10 kills, respectively. Galliano hit .346 (11-2-26) for the match. Mather came in at .455 (10-0-22). Ponnet led in kills with 14 and hit .250 (14-6-32). Off the bench, freshman Ryan Olson brought a much-needed spark and had six kills and a .545 average (6-0-11).

Galliano and Olson each had four block assists. Mather had three. Libero Trent Bruns and setter Keith Smith each had eight digs. Smith had 41 assists.

“The way we do our two-match series (on back-to-back nights) you can’t get too excited after a victory and you can’t hang your head after a defeat, because you’re back on the court in less than 24 hours,” Price added.

Fans unable to attend Saturday’s match can follow the action with live stats. A link to the live coverage will be available at www.GCULopes.com.

LUC 3, GCU 1