Match Stats
- Grand Canyon 3, Princeton 1 (25-15, 25-17, 22-25, 25-22)
- Grand Canyon moves to 15-9; Princeton falls to 10-10
- Phoenix
- Attendance: 449
- Box Score http://eivavolleyball.com/stats/2017/boxscores/20170324_wub1.xml
The Grand Canyon Antelopes faced off with the Princeton Tigers for the second straight night on Friday, but this time came up with a 3-1 win. The Tigers won Thursday’s match in five sets, but the Antelopes nailed down Friday’s win by scores of 25-15, 25-17, 22-25 and 25-22.
Three players posted double-digit kill tallies to lead the Antelopes. Junior outside hitter Cody Williams led the way with a match-high 17 putaways, while reigning MIVA Offensive Player of the Week Cullen Mosher and senior middle blocker Drake Silbernagel followed with 16 and 14 respectively. Williams hit at a .538 clip and also chipped in a team-best five blocks, while Silbernagel managed a .591 hitting percentage and added four stuffs. Junior libero Sky Engleman led GCU with six digs.
For Princeton, five players tallied six or more kills, led by freshman outside Parker Dixon’s nine. Freshman middle George Huhmann and rookie outside Greg Luck added eight apiece, while junior outside Kendall Ratter put down seven kills and served up two aces. Junior middle Junior Oboh registered seven blocks and six kills, while hitting at an .857 clip.
Both teams ran efficient offenses in the match with GCU hitting at .411 clip and Princeton managing a .341 effort. The Antelopes hit over .500 in each of their set wins and outblocked the Tigers 10-8 and outdug them 22-13.
A 6-0 mid-set run gave GCU a 13-5 edge in Set 1 and the Antelopes never looked back, cruising to a 25-15 win. A pair of Princeton miscues capped the stanza.
After an evenly matched first half of Set 2, Grand Canyon pulled away with a 9-4 run to turn a 10-9 lead into a six-point edge at 19-13. Williams had four kills in the run. Princeton would get no closer than five the rest of the way.
The Tigers came out of the intermission on a mission, jumping ahead 13-5 in Set 3, thanks to seven GCU miscues. A 7-2 run, capped by an ace, pulled the Antelopes back within three at 15-12. Trailing 20-15, Grand Canyon rallied to cut the margin to one three times, last at 23-22, but could not complete the comeback as a kill and a block by Oboh ended the set.
Set 4 featured nine ties, the last at 18-all, and never saw an advantage of more than three points for either side. Princeton owned its biggest lead at 15-12, but GCU scored six of the next eight to go ahead 18-17. The Tigers tied it at 18, but could never regain the lead at the Antelopes surged ahead 23-21 and finished the match with a kill and a block.
PRESS RELEASES
Courtesy: Grand Canyon Athletics
PHOENIX – After a tough five-set loss to the Princeton Tigers last night, the Lopes earned redemption on Friday evening. GCU topped the Tigers in four sets by scores of 25-15, 25-17, 22-25, and 25-22. With the win, Grand Canyon moves their record to 15-9 for the season.
“We had a much better performance tonight,” GCU head coach Matt Werle said. “We keep preaching that we have to earn points and make our opponents earn them as well; we did that much better tonight by cutting our errors by almost 30.”
By reducing their errors, the Lopes were dominant in Sets 1 and 2. GCU attacked over .500 in the first two sets and recorded 30 kills with only five errors in the process. Grand Canyon also limited the Princeton offense significantly better than the previous night. The Lopes tallied 22 digs and 10 blocks for the match compared to 13 digs and eight blocks for Princeton.
“Our serve reception looked familiar tonight,” Werle added. “We’re still not sure what happened last night because we saw the same serves. Our serve reception allowed us to hit above .400. We have raised our expectations as the season is nearing an end and our third set performance kept us from playing a ‘complete’ match which we will need to do next weekend at Loyola.”
In the third set, GCU had a break in concentration and struggled with errors. The Lopes committed ten attacking errors in the set and allowed Princeton to get back into the match with a 25-22 set win.
Grand Canyon battled to an 18-all tie in Set 4 before returning to form. The trio of Cullen Mosher, Cody Williams and Drake Silbernagel recorded 12 of the 13 GCU kills in the set, and each had kills in the final few points to put the Lopes up for good. GCU won the set, and the match, by a score of 25-23.
For the match, Williams led GCU with 17 kills five blocks and one ace. Mosher was right behind with 16 kills and an ace and Silbernagel rounded out the attackers with 14 kills, four blocks, and an ace. Sky Engleman had a great defensive night, leading the Lopes with six digs. Setter Michael Milstein dished out 47 assists and added two blocks in the effort.
The Lopes will battle for home-court advantage in the MIVA playoffs next week as they travel to Chicago for two matchups with Loyola. GCU stands at 10-4 in the league while Loyola’s conference mark is 7-4. GCU will play at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 31 and again on Saturday, April 1.
Courtesy: Princeton Athletics
The Princeton men’s volleyball got a balanced offensive attack during its final match on a tough Spring Break trip, but it didn’t get the defense it needed to complete a sweep of Grand Canyon. One night after pulling out a 3-2 road victory, the Tigers couldn’t slow down the Antelopes’ offense in a 3-1 road loss Friday night.
The trio of freshman starters — Parker Dixon (9), George Huhmann (8), Greg Luck (8) — combined to lead the team offensively with 25 of Princeton’s 42 kills, while middle blocker Junior Oboh had another standout match on both sides of the court. He recorded six kills on seven swings (.857), and he added seven blocks. Oboh’s efforts, however, weren’t enough to quell the Grand Canyon offense, which hit .411 in the four-set victory.
Senior Jonah May paced an efficient Princeton offense (.341) with 33 assists, while junior Kendall Ratter added seven kills, three digs and a pair of service aces.
Princeton can now turn its full attention to the EIVA season, which has five regular-season matches remaining. The Tigers are currently 6-3 in EIVA play, which is good enough for a share of second place, but five teams behind Penn State are separated by only one loss. The Tigers will face both Penn State and Saint Francis on the road next weekend.
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