CHARLOTTE, N.C. --- The Tusculum University men's volleyball team split day one of the Independent Volleyball Association (IVA) Tournament, hosted by Queens University of Charlotte. TU dropped its opener to Daemen before sweeping the nightcap over D'Youville.
The Pioneers (7-20) play their season finale on Saturday (Apr. 23) in the fifth place match at 10:30 a.m. against Fairleigh Dickinson.
Match 1: Daemen 3, Tusculum 0
The Pioneers took on the Daemen Wildcats for the first time in program history, but fell in a closely-contested match: 34-32, 25-22, 25-20.
Tusculum averaged a .218 hitting percentage as TU finished with 42 kills, 20 attack errors, and 101 attempts. Daemen tallied a .352 attack percentage with 42 kills, 10 errors and 91 attempts. The Wildcats led in total blocks (7-3), the Pioneers had more service aces (4-2) and digs (36-32), and the teams tied with 38 assists.
Jake Whyte tallied a team-high 15 kills on a .294 hitting percentage, just ahead of Dane Loup's 12 strikes. Colby Landry (6), Shaphar Grant (5), Hunter Walck (3), and Shaun Kampshoff (1) rounded out the offensive category. Kampshoff dished out 33 assists, while Whyte landed the most aces with two. Landry is credited with a career-high 10 digs, one more than Loup (9). Libero Taylor West was next up with seven digs. Four Pioneers participated in blocks at the net: Landry (solo), Walck (solo), Grant (assist), and Kampshoff (assist).
Daemen's Zach Schneider finished with a match-best 16 kills on a .324 clip, followed by Cameron Milligan's 12 points on a .579 rate. Michael Krueger handed out 33 assists and was one of two to record an ace (Milligan). Krueger collected a team-high eight digs, one more than Schneider. Wildcat libero John Jaworski dug up six attacks. Three Daemen players were involved in a pair of blocks: Milligan (two solo), Schneider (one solo, one assist), and Jake Couzens (one solo, one assist). Both Ryan Parker and Krueger are credited with a solo block as well.
Match 2: Tusculum 3, D'Youville 0
The Pioneers closed the day with a sweep of the No. 3 seeded team from the North, D'Youville, 25-23, 25-15, 25-17.
Ian De Wilde landed 15 kills on a .303 rate, totaling over half of his team's attack points. Randy Adorno handed out 16 assists, while De Wilde rounded out his double-double with a match-high 10 digs. Four Saints recorded a solo block: Jacob Malak, Anthony Dean, De Wilde, and Tymek Brzoza.
Landry headed up the Pioneer attack with 11 kills, just ahead of nine kills by both Loup and Grant. The duo also fired on a .412 clip as well. Kampshoff assisted on 26 successes, as Walck notched a trio of aces. Grant (2), Whyte (1), Kampshoff (1), and Landry (1) added service points. Whyte scooped up a team-best eight digs, one ahead of West and Kampshoff. Grant was stellar at the net, credited with six total blocks (four solo, two assists). Whyte contributed four (two solo, two assists), followed by Kampshoff's two (one solo, one assist), and Walck's block assist.
Tusculum finished the match with a .326 hitting percentage with 25 kills and 12 attack errors in 92 total attempts. D'Youville totaled 27 kills, 18 errors, and 84 swings for a .107 hitting percentage. The Pioneers led the match in assists (33-22), aces (8-0), and total blocks (10-4), while Saints ended with more digs (35-33).
The Saints had a better hitting percentage in the first frame but three aces and an additional kill provided the difference. D'Youville started out hot, sprinting out to a 14-8 lead. Tusculum went on a 10-3 run to lead 18-17. Whyte added a block and two kills in the final push, aided by three assists and a kill by Kampshoff. The Saints fought from a 24-21 deficit to pull within a point, but TU held on.
Tusculum was firing on all cylinders in the second set, aided by a .419 hitting percentage and 15 kills. Picking up where they left off, the Pioneers claimed the first three points of the frame, but the Saints came back to tie it at 6-all. TU never relented the lead across the remainder of the match. Tusculum used mini-spurts of three to tally the 10-point set win.
TU also collected the first three scores of the final frame: kills by Loup and Grant, capped off by a solo block by Whyte. The Pioneers went on a four-point run to lead 16-9. Beginning with a D'Youville attack error, Grant landed an ace, Walck and Whyte teamed up on a block, and Landry struck a kill. Of the final nine scores, six went the way of Tusculum, highlighted by two kills and two solo stuffs by Grant.
