Men's Volleyball 2017 season highlights

St. Louis, Mo. - Fontbonne University men's volleyball had quite a successful season this year. The Griffins finished the season 15-11 and 9-10 in conference, which is their highest win percentage in conference play in the history of the program.

This year the Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League split into East and West Divisions. The Griffins tied for third in the West Division with Lakeland College. The top two teams from each division advance to the MCVL Tournament.

Fontbonne, with zero seniors, will look to continue on their improvements from this season.  The squad snapped a four-game losing streak by defeating rival Greenville in five sets and finished their home-ending doubleheader with another five-set defeat of Olivet College. The Griffins finished 2017 on a six-game win streak with their final four wins coming on the road.

Fontbonne went 5-1 on the year in five-set matches. Their 0.474 conference win percentage trumped last year's 0.308 mark. With the MCVL going to divisions this year, Fontbonne swept Greenville and Marian, split games against Loras and Lakeland and lost two games each to divisional leaders Carthage and MSOE.

The Griffins finished the year with several rankings across NCAA Division III opponents/institutions. As a team, Fontbonne finished second in two categories with a conference-leading 12.36 digs per set and 31.19 team attacks per set. The Griffins also averaged 1.98 blocks per set as they came in just under the top-25 mark at No. 24.

On the individual level, freshman Zach Rothstein ranked fourth with 3.31 digs per set and Emir Hadzisalihovic's 0.89 blocks per set is 24th. Stephen Lendy's conference-leading 0.49 aces per set is 26th across Division III but the junior was 23rd with 8.21 attacks per set.

Rothstein earned MCVL Defensive Player of the Week during Fontbonne's second week of the season, the first honor for a Griffin since 2014. Several records were broken this year as the Griffins took down old records in season kills, assists and digs. Lendy is the program's newest season attack and season points leader. Kyler van Rossum-O'Connell owns both freshman records for total assists and assists per set. Rothstein is the freshman leader for total digs and digs per set.

At the end of the season the Griffins held a small banquet which included recognizing the following team awards:

MVP: Stephen Lendy

Most Improved: TJ Vorva

110% Award: Aaron Kowalewski

Co-Newcomers of the Year: Zach Rothstein and Kyler van Rossum-O'Connell

The full updated record book can be found here. Click here for the Griffins' season statistics.