Lions Fall to Wittenberg, St. John Fisher

HIRAM, Ohio – The Penn State Behrend men's volleyball team fell to Wittenberg 3-1 and St. John Fisher 3-2 on Saturday afternoon in a quad match held at Hiram in Price Gymnasium.

The Tigers (3-4) defeated the Lions (2-4) 25-20, 21-25, 25-20, 25-20 in the first match of the day. Behrend had match point against the Cardinals (5-2) in the fifth set, but dropped by scores of 25-21, 21-25, 27-25, 23-25, 16-14.

Dillon Hildebrand (Red Lion, PA/Red Lion), who knocked down a career-best 19 kills last night, did better with 23 kills against St. John Fisher. He also added 11 digs for the double-double in the five set match. On the day, Hildebrand finished with 41 kills and 16 digs.

Setter Anthony Sprentz (Cranberry Township, PA/Seneca Valley) ended with 81 assists, 13 digs and six blocks over the two matches.

Wittenberg used identical scores in the first, third and fourth set to start the day with a win over Behrend. Sprentz dished out 41 assists and added five digs, while Hildebrand registered 18 kills and Jake Albert (Cranberry Township, PA/Seneca Valley) had a career-high 15 kills.

The Tigers, only up by a point in the first set at 21-20, they got two kills and took advantage of two errors for a 25-20 victory. The Lions never trailed in the second and won 25-21 on an ace from freshman Danny Francis (Pittsburgh, PA/Thomas Jefferson). Wittenberg went on to win the next two sets 25-20.  

In the second match against the Cardinals, Sprentz tallied 40 assists, eight digs, five kills and four blocks. Robert McMaster (North Huntingdon, PA/Norwin) knotched a career-high 21 digs and Joey Reynolds  (Saegertown, PA/Saegertown) added seven blocks.

St. John Fisher won the odd sets, while Behrend won the even. The Cardinals claimed a 25-21 set-one win, before the Lions went on a 7-3 run to send the second set and even the match at 25-21. In the extra-point third set, SJF forced an attack error to stop Behrend from winning at 25-24. The Cardinals got a pair of kills to end the third set and take a 2-1 lead in the match.

In a must-win set, the Lions won three straight points with a kill from Albert and back-to-back blocks by Sprentz and Cody Geis (Mechanicsburg, PA/Cumberland Valley) for a 25-23 decision to force a fifth set.

Behrend rallied from a 13-10 deficit to even the score at 13-all and then taking the lead on an attack error. At match point, Matt Broderick got a kill for SJF and won the next two points on attack errors by the Lions at 16-14.

The Lions return to action on Wednesday at D'Youville. Match time is 7 p.m.