LC Men's Volleyball season ends with 2nd in MWPVC Championships

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[March 31, 2015]  LINCOLN - The Lincoln College Men's Volleyball team (26-12) finished their season this weekend with a trip to St, Louis for the MWPVC Championship Tournament.

Lincoln ran the table on day one, going 5-0 to win both their morning pool and the evening super-pool matches. The Lynx began their run to the No. 1 seed in bracket play with wins over SIU-E (25-29, 25-16), U of Chicago (25-14, 25-17), and Kansas (25-15, 25-19). In super-pool play, LC matched up against two other undefeated teams (SLU and Missouri S&T). Lincoln defeated St. Louis University 25-20, 25-21 then avenged an early season loss to nationally ranked Missouri S&T (#7) in an epic three set battle. S&T took set one 22-25, but the Lynx roared back to take sets two and three 25-20 and 15-7.

In bracket play on Sunday, Lincoln advanced to the championship match by winning two hard-fought matches against Creighton (25-21, 23-25, 15-11) and Nebraska (26-24, 18-25, 15-13). In the championship match, Lincoln again faced off against Missouri S&T. And, just like in their other two meetings this season, the teams split their first two sets. S&T took set one 22-25 and LC responded with a 25-23 win in set two. In the deciding set to 15, the teams fought back and forth to an 11-11 tie before S&T managed to pull away for a narrow 15-12 victory.

LC Coach Mark Tippett; We are very proud to come away with second place in the MWPVC in only our first year of competition. There were no easy wins for us once we got out of the first round of pool play, but our guys showed an incredible amount of mental toughness and stuck together when times got tough. Our wins over SLU and Missouri S&T on Saturday night were very intense matches.

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We are the only team in the Conference to have defeated S&T this year. They have a big team with lots of experience on their side, but our group of freshman gave them a great battle in the final that really could have gone either way. Our guys played their hearts out in a loss to a worthy opponent, so we left with no regrets. I am very pleased that we ended up with a record of 26-12 (16-2 in Conference), which is much better than I think anyone could have expected from a first year program. Each of our players should be proud of what they accomplished and congratulated on how well they represented Lincoln College. Coach Faith and I had a blast working with this group, and we are already looking forward to next season!

LC Stat totals:

Adam Krzos 59 kills, 51 points, 6 aces
Wes Higgenbotham 59 kills, 6 points 27 blocks
Lukasz Kupiec 180 set assists, 22 points, 12 blocks
Alex Robles 30 kills, 8 blocks
Alec Esparza 45 digs, 29 points, 6 aces
Manny Benitez 35 kills, 16 blocks
Zach DeLoach 16 kills, 8 blocks
Josue Ramirez 10 points, 6 digs
Michael Wesley 10 kills, 4 blocks
Brandon Anderson 23 points, 7 digs
Paul Gardner 3 kills

[Coach Mark Tipplett]

 

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