March 1, 2006

Box Score

ROMEOVILLE, Ill. - Despite 17 kills from David Kelnhofer and a near double-double of 16 kills and nine digs from Drew Pickering, the Lewis Flyers (5-8) fell to the Carthage Red Men (7-8) 30-23, 25-30, 34-36 and 23-30, Wednesday night at Neil Carey Arena.

Kelnhofer hit .341 for the match and notched four digs and two blocks. Craig Boller was the third Flyer to reach double digits in kills with 12. Alex Vigansky added six kills while hitting .417, and Rob Colombo recorded a career-best 12 digs.

After splitting the first two games of the match, the Flyers and Red Men battled beyond the 30-point mark in the third game. After series of well-played and lengthy rallies that saw the teams trade the lead twice past the 30-point mark, consecutive kills from Shane Olsen and John Lothman gave the Red Men the win.

Carthage's momentum carried over into the fourth game, as the Red Men took an early 2-1 lead, and held the advantage the rest of the way. After trailing by as many as four points, the Flyers closed to within one at 14-13 thanks to a kill by Kelnhofer and two by Mykolai Zerebeckyj, but the Red Men regained control from there and slowly put the match away.

The Flyers out-hit the Red Men .282 to .026 in the first match, but were out-gunned .382 to .114 in the second game.

T.J. Bellei led the Red Men by hitting .528 with a match-high 23 kills, and he was joined in double figures by Shane Olson (17), Rob Koehler (12) and Allan Russo (12). Matt Ulmer and Ryan Baumgartner each tallied a match-high 15 digs.

Carthage hit .234 for the match, compared to .230 by Lewis. The Red Men also held a slight edge in blocks, 8-6.

The Flyers play again on March 7 when they begin their west coast trip with a match at the University of California Santa Barbara at 7 pm local time.