Mount Olive Gets Their First Victory of 2018; January 16 Recap

January 16 only featured one ranked matchup, as it was the big game of the night between #2 UCLA and #18 UC San Diego. The full recap for that one can be seen here. Among the other three matches, two featured firsts – both in terms of wins this year while a coach got his first ever victory.

Mount Olive Def. Queens 3-1 (25-23, 20-25, 25-12, 25-20)

Mount Olive earned their first victory of the season behind the strengths of Robert Poole (19 kills, .319, 10 digs, four aces), as no other player hit the double-digit kill mark for UMO. Overall, Mount Olive hit almost seven percentage points better and doubled things up in the ace column in collecting their first win after losses on the road to a pair of top-15 EIVA opponents.

Coker Def. Erskine 3-2 (23-25, 26-24, 25-23, 23-25, 15-7)

Coker squeaked one out over Erskine in what was an even match in points until a one-sided fifth. The win came after Coker put up a .262 mark in the match – their best of the year after hitting .086 and .261 in their first two matches. Stephen Porras paced the attack with 18 kills, which helped Coker overcome the strong performance of Daniel Hermida (16 kills, .357, nine digs, three aces) for Erskine.

Belmont-Abbey Def. St. Andrews 3-0 (25-20, 25-21, 26-24)

Belmont-Abbey got their new head coach, Nolan Albrecht, his first victory at the helm as the defense held St. Andrew to a .036 mark. A big key to that was a strong block from Belmont-Abbey, but 26 attack errors for St. Andrews were part of a sloppy overall match attacking for both teams. Belmont-Abbey did have a bit less issues on that end though, hitting stronger .197 with three players between seven and nine kills.

#2 UCLA Def. #18 UC SAN DIEGO 3-0 (25-23, 25-18, 25-18)

#2 UCLA kept its perfect start going with a road sweep of a top-20 UCSD squad. JT Hatch (13 kills, .480, five digs) continues to put up big numbers for the Bruins this season as UCLA once again impressed in many facets of the game and utilized its ultra-aggressive serve concept (five aces to 16 serve errors) to keep UCSD on their heels at times, even if they gave up some free points.