ROMEOVILLE, Ill. – The 10
th ranked Lewis University Flyer men's volleyball team looks to extend its winning streak as it hosts Cal State Northridge and UC Santa Barbara this weekend at Neil Carey Arena. The Flyers take on the ninth ranked Matadors at 7 p.m. on Thursday and the 15
th ranked Gauchos at 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.
Star Wars will be the theme for Thursday night's contest. Prizes will be awarded for the three best Star Wars costumes. In addition, rally towels will also be given away. Saturday's contest will be the Red Out match against the Gauchos.
Lewis (3-3) ran its winning streak to three matches with a pair of sweeps last weekend over Saint Francis (Pa.) and Benedictine and moved up a spot in this week's AVCA Divsion I-II poll.
Tyler Mitchem (Bolingbrook, Ill./Bolingbrook) led the Flyers with 11 kills and had a hitting percentage of .769 in the match against the Red Flash.
Julian Moses (Atlanta, GA/Atlanta International School),
Ryan Coenen (Franklin, WI/Franklin) and
Mitch Perinar (Channahon, IL/Minooka) added seven kills each. As a team, Lewis had an attack percentage of .467 (42 kills/7 errors/75 chances).
On Saturday against the Eagles the Flyers won a hard fought first set 32-30. The set had 17 ties and eight lead changes before Lewis put it away on a block by
Danny Maurer (Oviedo, FL/Hagerty).
Dalen Instenes (Racine, WI/William Horlick) had 12 kills in the frame while
Kyle Bugee (Los Altos, CA/Homestead) added five. The Flyers cruised to a 25-12 win in set two hitting .476 in the stanza and then in the third set overcame a three-point deficit to win 25-21.
The Flyers hit .416 percent last weekend and averaged 15 kills per set. Instenes led the club with 20 kills last weekend while Mitchem added 17 and TJ Murrary finished with nine.
ABOUT CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE: The Matadors (5-1) won their first five matches to begin the season but suffered a four set loss to Concordia-Irvine in last outing. CSUN struggled to get its offensive going hitting just .191 while allowing the visitors to hit .291. The Eagles also won the battle at the net picking up 15 blocks including 10 solo. The Matadors were out-dug 38-32 and out-aced nine to seven.
Dimitar Kalchev leads Cal State Northridge with 55 kills while Ksawery Tomsia has recorded 44 kills and Arvis Greene is averaging 3.90 kills per set. Schylar Lillethorup and Sam Porter are splitting time at the setter position and are averaging 7.87 and 7.45 assists per set. On the defensive side of the ball Eric Chance leads the way with 28 total blocks while Emmett Enriques has recorded 30 digs.
ABOUT UC SANTA BARBARA: The Gauchos are 3-1 on the season and riding a two match winning streak heading into Thursday night's contest at seventh ranked Loyola. UCSB showed no rust after a two week lay-off caused by the Montecito mudslide in its four set win at Pepperdine last Friday.
Corey Chavers led the Gaucho attack with a career-high 24 kills and hit .333 for the match. He also led the team with a pair of service aces and finished with six total blocks. Roy McFarland chipped in with 12 kills of his own and Grady Yould had a match-high 13 digs.
Chavers leads a balanced UCSB offensive attack averaging 4.00 kills per set and is joined by McFarland who is averaging 3.00 kills/set. Jack Truman is adding 2.09 kills per set and Spencer Fredrick is contributing 1.67 kills/set. Randy DeWeese leads the team in set assists dishing out seven per set while on the defensive side of ball Connor Drake has 13 blocks and Yould has 33 digs.
