Total team effort leads GCU to victory over IPFW

Saturday, March 19

Fort Wayne, Ind.

4 p.m.

Grand Canyon

12-10, 5-7MIVA

IPFW

8-14, 1-9MIVA

Grand Canyon

IPFW

3/19/2016 6:56:00 PM | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

By: Samantha Fell

FORT WAYNE, IN – The GCU men's volleyball team rebounded from a disappointing loss on Friday evening to defeat the IPFW Mastodons in straight sets on Saturday night. The Lopes won by scores of 25-21, 25-21, 25-22 and improved their overall record to 12-10. Grand Canyon is now 5-7 in the MIVA while conference foe IPFW falls to 1-9 in league play and 8-14 overall.

"We executed the scouting report more successfully tonight," head coach Matt Werle commented. "We limited our service errors and played a much cleaner match."

One night after committing 20 hitting errors and 21 serving errors, GCU completely turned around their team stat line. The Lopes recorded 34 kills with only ten hitting errors for an attack percentage of .300. Grand Canyon tallied double-digit kills in each set and dominated the blocking game, putting up walls to 11 IPFW attacks compared to only three team blocks for the Mastodons.

A block won the match for the Lopes in Set 3. After falling behind by four points, down 14-18, GCU rallied behind a few IPFW miscues to tie the score at 22 all. A kill from Shalev Saada and another attack error from the Mastodons put the Lopes up 24-22. Ashton King and Gerrard Lipscombe then combined for the biggest block of the match to close out the set and earn the victory, winning 25-22.

The first two sets followed similar story lines. GCU jumped out to an early lead in both sets and held on to the leads throughout the duration. In Set 1, the Lopes utilized the strong serving of Michael Milstein to earn a 15-9 advantage. Saada knocked down the final three kills of the set to close out the 25-21 win for GCU. During Set 2, King had three kills to pace the Lopes. The team held off a mid-set rally from IPFW to again win the set at 25-21.

Junior libero Kyle Miller stepped up and turned in his best match of the year. Miller has a season-high 10 digs to lead GCU. Saada had 15 kills, Lipscombe tallied 10 and Tanner Maxwell added five to pace the GCU offense.

"This was a team effort. As soon as we can get some things figured out between our ears, we will be much better off," Werle said. "Again, this was a really good 'team' effort."

The Lopes travel to St. Charles, Missouri next weekend to face MIVA opponent Lindenwood in two conference games. The first match will begin at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 25 and the second will be played at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 26.