Rochester, NY -- Playing in their first match in two weeks, the No. 11 Elmira College men's volleyball team dropped a close four-set UVC Conference match to No. 7 Nazareth College.
Erik Griffin '16 led EC with 24 kills, one of three Elmira players with double-digit kills on the afternoon.
Behind Griffin were
Mike Ellison '16 and
Dylan Kuhn '16 who posted 16 and 11 kills, respectively. Griffin had stats in just about every category, posting one service ace, two assists, five digs, one solo block, and one block assist. Setting up the attack for EC was
Carlos Faccio'16 who recorded his seventh 50-plus assist match of the season against the Golden Flyers. Faccio also had a strong day serving, adding three aces to his season total. Defensively,
Rob Shade'15 led EC with 15 digs, while Griffin, Ellison,
Andrew Johnson '16, and
Matthew Buffum '18 all tied for the team high with two blocks.
EC jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first set behind two service aces from
Carlos Faccio'16, but Nazareth settled in and won seven out of the next nine points to take a 7-5 lead. After Elmira won the next two points to tie the score at seven, the teams traded points until a Griffin kill made it 18-18. That started a 4-0 run for the Soaring Eagles that saw them take a 21-18 lead, but the Golden Flyers closed the set on a 7-1 run to take it 25-22.
The Soaring Eagles again held an early lead in the second set, going on top of Nazareth 5-1 before the Golden Flyers cut it to 5-3. Nazareth's mini-run did not seem to phase the Purple and Gold, however, as they went on a 10-2 run to break open a 15-5 advantage. The Golden Flyers would chip away at the deficit, but EC kept Nazareth at arm's length, winning the second set 25-19.
Following the trend of the previous two sets, Elmira started with a 4-1 lead in set three. But EC would not be able to create distance like in set two as the third set saw seven early ties, the last coming at 11-11. Nazareth won eight of the next 11 points to take a 19-14 lead and had set point at 24-21. EC, however, would not go away as they won the next four points to create a set point of their own at 25-24. The Golden Flyers saved that set point, as well as a second one at 26-25 and eventually took the third set, 28-26.
The fourth set was nearly identical to the third set as it resulted in a 27-25 Nazareth victory. The theme stayed true for the Purple and Gold as they held a 5-2 lead in the early goings of the set. The Golden Flyers took the next four points to go up 6-5, but EC recovered with five of the next seven points to take a 10-8 advantage. Nazareth again used a large run, this one being 5-0, to go up 13-10 and looked as if they were going to run away with the set as they turned that into a 20-15 advantage. The Golden Flyers led by five, 23-18, but EC came all the way back to tie the set score at 24-24. Elmira fought off one match point at 25-24, but Nazareth took down the Soaring Eagles, 27-25 to win the match.
EC travels to take on the number six team in the nation on Saturday, March 28th as they square-off with three-time defending national champions Springfield College at 3:00 p.m.
