Griffins revenge Greenville; Haston at top of coaching wins list
St. Louis, Mo. - Fontbonne men's volleyball got revenge on Greenville's previous five-set win by sweeping the Panthers 26-24, 25-21 and 25-19. Fontbonne improves to 4-1 with three consecutive wins while Greenville moves to 3-2 and their second straight loss. The win puts head coach Mike Haston at the top of Fontbonne men's volleyball's all-time coaching list.
After allowing Greenville to score the first point, Fontbonne put up three straight points with a kill and two blocks as Stephen Lendy and Tony Pitaro combined a wall for both, which got the Griffin crowd on their feet early. Fontbonne led 11-8 when three Griffin errors tied the set. Fontbonne managed a 22-20 lead on another block by the duo until Greenville posted three points to pull ahead by one. Fontbonne scored their final three points to win on a kill by Lendy, block by Brendon Schwartze and Emir Hadzisalihovic and finally an ace by Lendy.
Second-set action proved to be yet another tight matchup with the Griffins maintaining their largest five-point lead at 17-12 on a tip by setter Jacob Lendy. Greenville crawled back, down one 20-19, but three Panther errors enabled the Griffins to pull away. Fontbonne won the set on a kill by right-side hitter TJ Vorva.
Momemtum swinging their way, Fontbonne broke out to a 3-0 lead in the third set. In a set that saw five service errors from both teams and 11 attack errors from Greenville, Fontbonne closed out the win on five unanswered points. Of those five points, Hadzisalihovic totaled two blocks (of four in the set) while Stephen Lendy tallied a block and a kill.
Schwartze totaled 16 kills, averaging .500 with Stephen Lendy adding 10 as well. Jacob Lendy's 12 digs was the game-high as he also assisted 29 times. A block party from Stephen Lendy (5), Hadzisalihovic (5), and Pitaro (4) totaled to 10 team blocks when added to Jacob Lendy's two and Schwartze's one.
Fontbonne held Greenville's heavy-hitting freshman Daniel Bilinski to a negative hitting percentage with 16 errors, eight of which came in the third set.
Fontbonne will host Rust College in a doubleheader this Saturday, February 6th at 6 p.m.