WITTENERG, Ohio – The Trine University men's volleyball team fell in five sets on Friday night to Wittenberg University in the penultimate match of the regular season.
The loss drops Trine out of contention to win a share of the Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League (MCVL) title, but are safely in the postseason tournament with a record of 16-6 overall and 6-2 in league action. Wittenberg has clinched at least a share of the conference crown at 17-8 and 8-0.
23 of the team's 51 kills belonged to Ted Hofmeister as he crossed the 900-mark for his career. He also collected 15 digs for a double-double. Hunter Haas had a team-high 18 digs as the team's libero. Kevin Boncaro had a double-double as well with 11 kills and 10 digs. Nick Woolley had 43 assists and chipped in on four blocks to tie for the team lead with Karl Both on the night. Matt Stillman hit .545 to lead the team featuring seven kills.
An evenly played first set went to the Tigers by a score of 25-23. Wittenberg scored the final three points in the set to claim the win. The team would bounce back with an error-free second set that included seven kills in a 25-18 victory. A match-high .333 hitting percentage and nine miscues by the Tigers helped propel the Thunder to even the match at 1-1.
An 8-3 lead for Wittenberg to begin set three forced Trine into using a timeout to regroup. Despite a match-high 14 kills in the set, the Thunder were unable to overcome the early hole and eventually were taken down 25-19 in set three. In the fourth set, 14 kills was enough to get the job done in a 28-26 win. A 9-2 scoring run for Wittenberg evened the set at 24 all before Johnson-Kuhao Ho'okano-Pelekai had a kill to clinch a fifth and final set.
The Tigers claimed a 6-2 lead early in the fifth, resulting in a timeout from Head Coach Will Dowdy. The scoring run would continue for Wittenberg until it was 13-6. Five consecutive points for the Thunder showed they were not going down without a fight, but both timeouts called by the Tigers were enough to push them to the set and match win, 15-11.
Trine faces Mount St. Joseph University on Saturday, April 6 at 1 p.m. in the team's final regular season match of 2024. Postseason seeding is on the line for the team with Wittenberg facing Calvin University (1 p.m.) and Baldwin Wallace University versus the University of Mount Union (1 p.m.) as other matches to watch.