Men's Volleyball concludes historic 17-win season
St. Louis, Mo. - Fontbonne men's volleyball won seventeen games this season, more than doubling the school's win record. Previously, the best winning seasons consisted of 8-8 records in 2014 and 2011. The Griffins also finished with a conference-best 4-9 record in their second year with the Midwest Collegiate Volleyball league.
Fontbonne got off to a 6-1 start this year, with all six wins 3-0 sweeps. The Griffins then tallied six wins in a row before dropping their final game of the season to tie a consecutive win record.
As a team, Fontbonne set a new kills record, tallying 1,030 kills in 2016. They smashed the previous record of 1004 from four years ago. The Griffins also set a new team records in the following categories: hitting percentage (.230), assists (918) and aces (184). Fontbonne more than doubled their aces from the previous year's record of 83. This year Jacob Lendy served up 14 aces in one contest while Stephen Lendy now holds the individual season record, serving 49 aces on the season. Jacob served up 33 and freshman Gabe Grote totaled 29. All three bested Michael Visintine's 22 from 2012 and Stephen's 22 from last year.
Setter Jacob Lendy owns the school and career records for assists. He recorded 760 this season and after just two seasons has a total 1,372 assists. Emir Hadzisalihovic's 66 total blocks and .263 hitting percentage are freshmen records and his blocks are good for second-best in a season. Freshman Brendon Schwartze led Fontbonne with 217 kills while Stephen Lendy recorded 210. Schwartze's career-high 17 kills occurred at Wittenberg while No. 22 Stephen Lendy's career-high 22 kills came at Regis College which he followed up with 18 at Elms College the following day.
The Griffins lose lone senior Jimmy Stika who has more than made his mark on Fontbonne during his four-year tenure. Stika is second, third, fifth and sixth all-time for digs in a season. The libero is second all-time with 831 career digs. Each year, he's been ranked nationally at the end of the season in digs per set, all among the top 25. His senior season has been his best with 252 total digs, ranking him No. 12 among NCAA Division III players with an average of 2.58 digs per set.