ST. CHARLES, MO—Lindenwood hit an impressive .413 for the match defeating visiting NJIT, 3-1, Friday evening in non-conference men's volleyball action at Hyland Arena.
Lindenwood, a team that finished 19-12 overall a season ago, opened the 2015 season on Thursday defeating Grand View University, 3-2, and followed up Friday with a 3-1 victory over visiting NJIT, 21-25, 25-17, 25-15 and 25-15. The Lions improve to 2-0 on the young season while the Highlanders drop to 0-2.
The Lions were led by 6-foot-9 senior Colin Hackworth with a match-best 17 kills and four total blocks (all assists) and senior outside hitter Kyle Overby with 13 kills, nine digs and two block assists. Hackworth finished the match with a .484 hitting percentage on 31 swings and two errors while Overby combined for a .429 hitting percentage on 21 attempts and four errors. Middle blocker Zach Bequette hit .500 notching 7 kills on 12 swings with just one error.
Setter Connor Metcalfe piled up a match-high 41 assists while defensively the 6-foot-4 senior led the Lions with a match-best 12 digs.
The Lions held a 9.5-to-4.0 team block advantage paced by eight total blocks (1 solo, 7 assists) from senior Logan Jarus. Lindewood also led in the service ace category, 7-to-1, led by a match-best 5 aces by Hackworth.
NJIT was paced by redshirt junior
TJ Jurko's 15 kills while hitting a team-best .333 (15k, 6e, 27a). Sophomore outside hitter
Jabarry Goodridge was the other Highlander to reach double-digit kills with 10.
Setter
Zak Robben recorded 26 assists for the Highlanders, while libero
Oren Zyndorf added 8 digs defensively for NJIT. Redshirt sophomore middle
Luke Robbe, from Wildwood, MO, and
Chris Kaepernick added three block assists apiece.
In the first set, the score remained close through the mid-teens, until the Highlanders went on a 3-0 spurt taking a 21-16 advantage. Lindenwood cut the lead down to two on multiple occasions, the last at 21-23 on an NJIT attacking error. NJIT finished strong with back-to-back kills by Kaepernick and Goodridge to seal a 25-21 victory.
Lindenwood jumped out to a 12-7 lead in the second set and later went up by 6, 19-13, on a kill by Overby. The Highlanders came as close as five (15-20), but a 5-2 run to close out the set gave the Lions the second frame, 25-17. The Lions finished the set with a .480 hitting percentage.
In the third frame, Lindenwood controlled early, 9-4, and later extended its lead to 6, 15-9, on an NJIT attack error and never looked back securing the 25-16 win. The home team hit .522 in the third set (15k, 3e, 23a).
Lindewood won the fourth and final set 25-15 behind a .550 team hitting percentage (13k, 2e, 20a).
NJIT, which started off the season with two matches in Missouri, will continue its trip with a 2pm match on Sunday at University of Charleston in West Virginia.
