Men's Volleyball Nate Hart, Sports Information Assistant

Griffin & Vellutato Double-Doubles Lead Elmira to Sweep of D’Youville

Box Score
Elmira, NY – The Elmira College Men's Volleyball team made quick work downing visiting D'Youville College, 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 25-17), Wednesday evening in Speidel Gymnasium. The win improves the Soaring Eagles to 8-5 overall and 3-3 in United Volleyball play, while the loss drops the Spartans to 7-5 and 2-4.

Elmira got out to a quick 4-2 start early but then struggled with several hitting errors as D'Youville took an 11-9 lead. The Soaring Eagles doubled up the Spartans on an 8-4 run to take a 17-15 advantage, which caused D'Youville to call time out. Elmira extended its lead and was able to close out the first set, 25-21. EC finished with 17 kills in the opening set, while hitting .250 as a team.

After a slow start to the second set where they trailed 8-11 Elmira used four straight points to take a 12-11 lead. Overall, the Soaring Eagles scored 17 of the sets final 25 points to take the second stanza, 25-18. The Purple and Gold finished with 14 kills and hit .286 in the frame, while the Spartans finished with seven kills and eight errors.

Both teams played fairly evenly in the third set as Elmira held a 13-10 advantage midway through. The Soaring Eagles opened up a 20-13 lead taking command of the match and closed it out, 25-17. EC finished with its best hitting performance on the night as it pounded out 17 kills and committed only two errors for a .517 hitting percentage.

Erik Griffin paced the Soaring Eagles with a double-double tallying 10 kills and 10 digs, while Michael Vellutato '14 dished out a match-high 39 assists to go with 10 digs. Ryan Gelenitis '14 tallied 11 kills and four digs hitting over .300.

Meanwhile, Dylan Kuhn '16 finished with seven kills in two sets and Andrew Johnson '16 recorded four kills in one set. Kuhn and Johnson finished with tremendous hitting marks of .583 and .800, respectively.

The Men's Volleyball team returns to action this weekend when it takes part in the Baruch Tournament in New York, NY where it will take on three teams in the AVCA Top 15 Poll. Saturday No. 11 Elmira takes on No. 15 MIT and host, No. 9 Baruch. Sunday the Purple and Gold have matches with No. 12 Stevenson and Emmanuel. 

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