BUENA VISTA, Va. – The Messiah College men's volleyball team fell to No.11 Southern Virginia University 3-0 (25-16, 25-19, 25-15) on Friday evening.  Messiah is now 10-5 overall while the Knights moved to 14-6.  

The Falcons struggled offensively and only hit a .136 on the match (25 kills, 15 errors, 66 attempts), while the Knights had an impressive offensive performance and hit .313 (33 kills, 12 errors, 67 attempts). Logan Hunsberger led Messiah with nine kills and Noah Shreiner added five. Brad Nase collected 24 assists, while Quay San and Noah Shreiner each added three blocks at the net.

Messiah and Southern Virginia opened the match with back-and-forth play but the Knights took off on a three-point scoring run to extend their lead, 10-7. The Falcons received a side-out after a kill by Jarred Sands which led Messiah on their own three-point run to tie things at 10-10. Once again the teams traded points but Southern Virginia launched off on a 5-to-0 run (17-12) past the Falcons. Logan Hunsberger terminated back-to-back kills to cut the lead down to three, but the Knights quickly sided out and scored an ace which forced Messiah to call their final timeout. Hunsberger came out of the time-out with his sixth kill in the first set, however the Knights responded and closed out the set on a 5-to-1 run (25-16).

Back-to-back errors by Southern Virginia gave the Falcons an early 7-5 lead in game two, however Messiah committed two consecutive errors of their own and the match was tied at sevens. After some back-and-forth play, the Knights went off on a 7-to-1 run to gain a 16-10 advantage over the Falcons. Messiah was unable to generate any scoring runs in the second set and Southern Virginia secured the win by a score of 25-19. The Falcons struggled offensively in the second set and they only hit .053 after collecting only seven kills and committing six attack errors on 19 attempts.

Both teams started the third set off strong and with high intensity trading points back-and-forth. The score was tied at 9-9 and the Knights took off on a 6-to-1 scoring run past the Falcons. Messiah was able to get a side-out when Noah Shreiner terminated off of Brad Nase's delivery and brought Southern Virginia's lead down to 15-11. However, the Hawks scored four-straight points to pull ahead 19-11 and didn't look back. Messiah dropped the third and final set 25-15 to Southern Virginia.

Up Next
The Falcons will compete in the Eastern Mennonite University tri-match on Saturday, Mar. 17. Messiah will face Thiel College at 4:00 p.m. and will take on the host team at 6:00 p.m.