Coming off their split win trimatch this past Saturday at Emmanuel College, the men's volleyball team took home a solid 3-0 win against the Dean Bulldogs for their first home game in February. The teams home games will now start to pick up since the winter athletic season has come to an end.
Within the first twenty minutes of the games start, the Lasers had already taken the first set
25 - 12 against the Bulldogs.
In the second set, the Lasers went up by eight points to start the match 9-1 before giving serve back to Dean.In their attempt to catch back up, we gained the first serve back, the Lasers quickly started to stack more points on the Bulldogs. When senior Riley Grenier stepped in for serve at 15-3, Bulldogs junior Aaron Fronseca received the ball with his leg, ending in the Lasers point and a time out on Dean's behalf.
Grenier then went on for a 10 point service run, ending the second set 25-3.
Although going for the long service run, Grenier says “In the second set I definitely got bailed out by my teammates for a couple of bad serves and we were able to find a good rhythm.”
Entering the third the Lasers lost the first point, however gained it back with a side out. Then for the first time all game, the Bulldogs went up. The score was 4-5 after service from Bulldog Fonseca. However, it only lasted one point before returning to our service.
The Bulldogs seemed to be putting up more of a fight in the third than any other. At score 19-8, Mark Ledwich, head coach of Dean College, called another timeout. Bulldog senior Tyler Martins had a few good saves on the right side, however, with the set ending 25-12, it didn’t prove much of a difference against the Lasers offensive strategy.
“There’s a lot to look forward to for the rest of the season and I think tonight’s win really exemplifies that with the energy in the building from the crowd, bench, and guys on the floor…
I think all the guys played great tonight, definitely a team effort in all three sets. It’s awesome to see some guys who normally don’t get a ton of time finding a lot of success,” said Grenier.
Most of the points made by the Bulldogs were off of errors given to them by the Lasers. In the end, Dean had four kills total to the Lasers 32. Lead Attacker for the Lasers was sophomore outside hitter David Massa with a kill percentage of .556.
Their next game is against the SUNY Poly Wildcats this Saturday in the Athletic Center at 12 p.m. Although most Saturday matches are usually trimatches, this will be their only opponent this weekend.