Men's Volleyball Set to Battle Thiel Thursday

ERIE, Pa. – The Penn State Behrend men's volleyball team will host the Thiel Tomcats in their Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) opener on Thursday night at the Junker Center, beginning at 7 p.m.

Coverage
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Behrend News & Notes:

* The Behrend Lions went 2-0 last weekend in a home tri-match
* Behrend defeated St. Vincent 3-0 and Mount St. Joseph, 3-1
* The Lions are home one more time in February and are not back in the Junker Center for an entire month
* Senior outside hitter Dillon Hildebrand (Red Lion, PA/Red Lion) became the first player in program history to reach 1,000 kills in his career on Saturday
* Hildebrand registered 23 kills (3.38 per set) over a pair of matches, leading the team with 17 kills in a four-set win over Mt. St. Joseph
* Against St. Vincent, sophomore Cody Schnur (Butler, PA/Butler) hit .788 and junior Colin Dedert (Pittsburgh, PA/Plum) hit .625 for season bests
* Schnur is ranked 29^th in NCAA Division III statistics in hitting percentage (.363)
* Diego Ortiz (San Juan, Puerto Rico/Wesleyan Academy) dished out 48 assists on the weekend

Thiel News & Notes:

* The Tomcats have started the season 0-5
* Thiel is coming off a pair of losses last weekend to Johnson & Wales (3-2) and St. John Fisher (3-0)
* Mitch Patterson leads the AMCC in kills per set (4.37), while D'Ondre Merren is first in digs per set (2.61)
* The Tomcats have only won four sets in five matches

Series History:

* Behrend holds a 7-6 lead in the all-time series against Thiel
* The teams split last season, each winning a match 3-2
* The series began back in 2012
* The Lions had their seven-match win streak snapped in the final meeting last year