GRANTHAM, Pa. - The Messiah College men's volleyball team picked up their first Middle Atlantic Conference win after they defeated the Cougars of Misericordia 3-0 (25-15, 25-16, 25-17). The Falcons moved to 2-1 overall and 1-0 in the MAC.

As a team, Messiah hit a phenomenal 0.431 by terminating 33 kills and only committing eight attack errors. The Falcons also tallied eight team blocks, while Misericordia only had one.

The Falcons were led offensively by Travis Hoover, Logan Hunsberger, and Matt Knab and all three of these players terminated seven kills. Noah Shreiner added six kills and hit an impressive 1.000. Brad Nase did a great job balancing the attack and collected 26 assists for Messiah. Caleb Weaver led Messiah's defense with 10 digs and also picked up two assists. Jarred Sands had a dominating performance at the net and led the Falcons with five blocks and Hoover added four.

Hot Start for Messiah
The first game started with some back-and-forth action but Messiah went on a five-point run to gain an advantage of 10-5. This run started by two attacking errors from the Cougars and an ace delivered by Logan Hunsberger. Noah Shreiner terminated out of the middle to extend Messiah's lead to five and then Hunsberger collected another ace to give Messiah a 10-4 lead. Misericordia and Messiah exchanged a couple points back and forth and then Messiah took off again on another five-point run and found themselves up 16-6. Three of those five points were off of the Cougars' errors. The Falcons carried this momentum for the rest of the game and Matt Knab terminated off of Ian Parzyszek's out of system set to win game one, 25-15.

Messiah hit a steady .476 in the first game and only committed two hitting errors, the Cougars on the other hand committed seven attacking errors and hit -.042.

Terminating Mindset
The Falcons carried the momentum they generated from the first set into the second. In fact, the Falcons hit the best they've hit all season in game two, calculating a .643 attack percentage. Messiah collected 10 kills on 14 attempts and only had one error. Once again Misericordia hit in the negative (-.105) and struggled to find any rhythm offensively.

Messiah found themselves trailing 4-2 early in the game, mostly due to back-to-back serving errors, but then a kill by Noah Shreiner and an ace by Travis Hoover tied the game up (4-4). The Falcons and Cougars battled back and forth and the score was tied at 10-10 after Ryan Miller from Misericordia scored off of a back-row attack. Messiah then went on a five-point run to pull ahead (15-10). The Cougars tried to battle back but the Falcons took off on a four-point run which was ignited by opposite Travis Hoover and middle Noah Shreiner collecting back-to-back kills. An attack error by the Cougars and a kill by Matt Knab extended Messiah's lead to 20-13 and the Falcons were five points away from winning set two. Matt Knab finished the game once again for Messiah, first by connecting on a set from Brad Nase and then scoring game point off of a block. Messiah was now up 2-0 and were looking to close the match in game three.

Picked Up The Sweep
Messiah soared to victory in the third set and a lot of different players were able to see court time and gain experience. However, game three was the lowest attacking set for Messiah, in which they only hit .292 and they also picked up four service errors.

Similar to game two, Messiah and Misericordia exchanged points back and forth early in the set but the Falcons went on a small run after the Cougars committed three-straight errors (7-4). The Falcons continued to build upon their lead and led by as many as nine (20-11) after Ian Parzyszek scored off of Brad Nase's delivery. Travis Hoover terminated for Messiah to give the Falcons a possible match point (24-14) but the Cougars would not hand it to them. Misericordia went on a three point run at the end of the match looking to generate momentum, but Will Webb connected from Thomas Wood's set to finish the match for Messiah.
 
Up Next
As previously mentioned, the Falcons moved to 2-1 overall and picked up their first conference win. Messiah will be back in action on Wednesday, Feb. 7 when they travel to Wilkes University. The match is scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m.