Lewis University’s Dan Friend Gets 400th Career Victory

  0 Braden Keith | January 08th, 2017 | College - Men's Indoor, EIVA, MIVA, News

Match Stats

  • #6 Lewis University def. NJIT 3-1 (25-22, 25-15, 22-25, 28-26)
  • Lewis moves to 1-1; NJIT falls to 2-2
  • Neil Care Arena, Romeoville, Illinois
  • Attendance: 398
  • Match Stats

The 6th-ranked Lewis University Flyers gave their head coach Dan Friend his 400th career NCAA victory with a 3-1 win over NJIT on Saturday.

Friend has won 241 games as the head coach of the Lewis University men’s team, 17 as the interim women’s head coach, 76 as the head coach of the Newman women’s team, and 66 as the head coach of the Newman men’s team.

In the latest win, Lewis hit a whopping .422 as a team, including a .444 percentage even in the 3rd set, which they lost.

Lewis dominated most of the game at the net, out-blocking NJIT 11.5-7. That included 5 blocks each from Danny Maurer and Mitch Perinar, with Maurer getting a solo stuff as well.

Perinar had a 20-kill effort offensively for Lewis as well. That came with just a single hitting error for a .594 hitting percentage.

Lewis’ top performer was Raymond Kowalski, who had 16 kills (.333 percentage) and 4 digs for the Highlanders in the loss.

Press Releases

Courtesy Lewis University Athletics:

Romeoville, Ill. – Lewis University head men’s volleyball coach Dan Friend won his 400th career match, as the No. 6 Flyers claimed the 25-22, 25-15, 22-25, 28-26 non-conference victory over NJIT at Neil Carey Arena on Saturday (Jan. 7) night.

Friend has won 241 matches as the Lewis head men’s volleyball coach, 17 as the Lewis interim head women’s volleyball coach, 76 as the Newman head women’s volleyball coach and 66 as the Newman head men’s volleyball coach.

With the win, Lewis improves to 1-1 overall, while the Highlanders fall to 0-2 on the campaign.

Lewis redshirt sophomore opposite hitter Mitch Perinar (Channahon, Ill./Minooka) and senior middle blocker Jacob Schmiegelt (Lombard, Ill./Willowbrook) combined for 29 kills and a hitting percentage of .614 (29 kills, 2 errors, 44 attacks).

Perinar had a match-high 20 kills, while hitting .594 (20 kills, 1 error, 32 attacks), while Schmiegelt had a hitting percentage of .667 (9 kills, 1 error, 12 attacks).

Flyer sophomore setter Matt Yoshimoto (Ventura, Calif./Adolfo Camarillo) had 41 assists, while redshirt sophomore libero Michael Simmons (Aurora, Ill./Waubonsie Valley) added seven digs in the victory.

As a team, Lewis hit .422 (51-13-90) and did not hit below .318 in a single set.

Lewis returns to action on Friday (Jan. 13), as the Flyers welcome Harvard to Neil Carey Arena for a 7 PM first serve.

Courtesy NJIT Athletics:

ROMEOVILLE, IL – The NJIT men’s volleyball team dropped a 3-1 decision to host No. 6 Lewis on Saturday night.

The Highlanders (0-2) fell in three close sets 22-25, 15-25, 25-22 and 26-28 to the Flyers (1-1).

NJIT was led by Raymond Kowalski with 16 kills and three blocks, followed by Jabarry Goodridge with 13 kills, five digs and three aces.

Ricardo Whitaker notched 40 assists for the Highlanders while Shannon Heckman tallied a game-high eight digs, while Luke Allmond made a team-high five blocks.

Lewis had the lead for most of the first set, but the Highlanders would come back at the end with two kills by Kowalski that tied the set up 20-20. However the Flyers would pull away to win 25-22.

The second set started out close, but the Flyers would pull away and win by 10, 25-15.

The Highlanders pulled ahead in the third set with a kill and service ace by senior Goodridge and two attack errors by Lewis taking a 21-18 lead and eventually taking the set 25-22.

The fourth set was the closest and longest set of the night. In a back and forth set, the score was tied up at 24 until Jacob Schmiegelt posted a service ace to put Lewis ahead. The Highlanders went up by two with a service error from the Flyers and an ace for themselves from freshman Bailey Mundy.

Lewis scored the next three points to take the set 28-26.

The Highlanders will host North Greenville for their first home game of 2017 on January 11 for a 7pm start time.

Leave a Reply

avatar

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com. Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder. Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …

Read More »

Don't want to miss anything?

Subscribe to our newsletter and receive our latest updates!