Eagles Defeat #20 Knights
HUNTINGDON, Pa.- The #3 Juniata men's volleyball team swept #20 Arcadia University, 3-0 (25-15, 25-17, 25-16) Saturday afternoon inside Memorial Gymnasium.
The opening set was close through the middle stages, with Juniata using three straight errors to gain a 14-11 lead. A service error broke the run for a moment, but two straight kills from Will Phelan and a block by Campbell Gerdeman and Luke Hoffman got JC back on track. Arcadia called timeout to try and quell the run, but Juniata continued to roll. Hoffman tallied another kill; the Knights committed an error, and Tyler Goldsborough added an ace to put the Eagles ahead 20-12. The Knights took three of the next four to get within six on a kill, 21-15. Juniata took the final four points of the set on a Phelan kill, a block by him and Kevin Duffy III, a Duffy kill, and one more kill from Phelan ended the set, 25-15.
Set two saw Juniata blow the set open again in the middle of the set. With the score at 10-8, Goldsborough got a kill and immediately followed with an ace; Gerdeman added a kill of his own, and the Knights committed two errors as the Eagles led by seven. Juniata kept the visitors at arm's length the rest of the set, with Hoffman winning set two via kill, 25-17.
The Eagle offense found their stride in the third as they hit .462, jumped ahead 14-6 early, and didn't look back as they took set three 25-16 on a Knight attack error.
Duffy had another big day as he totaled nine kills while hitting .583 with a solo block and two block assists. Goldsborough amassed eight kills while hitting .438 with an assist, two aces, six digs, and two block assists. Hoffman tallied seven kills while hitting .556 with six block assists. Reese Ganter had 31 assists, eight digs, and three block assists while leading the team to a .362 hitting percentage.
Juniata returns to action on March 17th in California as they will take on UC Santa Cruz at 6:00