GOSHEN, Ind. — Alexander Rabadzhiev posted 11 kills for his third straight match in double figures and Andy Bennett hit north of .500 Tuesday night as the Goshen College men's volleyball team dropped a three-set decision to Lourdes University in Gunden Gymnasium.

Lourdes, the defending Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference champion, opened its season by posting double-digit kill totals in each set of a 25-15, 25-22, 25-20 win.

The Grey Wolves (1-0, 1-0) got a match-high 15 kills from Ricardo Gehrke to go with 12 from Evan Gebert and 11 from Jeff Lam, who posted a match-high 2 aces. Brendan Brown added 4 blocks and Henrique Gehrke contributed 36 assists. Lourdes hit .366 for the match and at least .276 in every set.

Goshen (0-3, 0-2) earned a pair of blocks from Bennett and 7 digs from Nick Yutzy; Michael Wahl posted 20 assists, recording either the kill or the assist on every Maple Leaf winner save one.

Lourdes jumped to a 13-5 lead in the opening set behind five kills and two blocks, eventually posting 13 winners on 19 attacks in the stanza. Matheus Andrade posted an ace to run the lead to 18-9, before kills by Gebert and Henrique Gehrke finished the set.

The Grey Wolves started the second set with a 10-3 run before Goshen took five of six points, including two Rabadzhiev kills, to cut the margin to three. Bennett added a kill and combined with Christian Rodriguez on a block to make it 14-13 Lourdes, and Rabadzhiev's kill pulled the Leafs level at 15. GC could get no closer, though, as Lourdes took five of the next six points including three Ricardo Gehrke kills and closed the set out from there.

The third set started like the first, with the Maple Leafs taking the first point before Lourdes won four in a row, and continued like the second: Goshen trimmed its deficit to two points on three occasions and used a 3-0 spurt to get within three late, but never came all the way back.

Bennett put down three of his seven kills in the set and Rodriguez pulled Goshen back within 23-20 on a winner from Wahl. Gebert and Lam answered with kills of their own to cap the match after 68 minutes of action.

Lourdes finished with 29 digs to Goshen's 19, getting a match-high 8 from Andrade, and recorded all five of the match's aces; on the other hand, Goshen accumulated 11 service aces to the Grey Wolves' 19.

Up Next: Goshen continues its four-match homestand with a visit from Robert Morris University at 7 p.m. Thursday, marking the first time this season that the Maple Leafs will host a school from outside the WHAC.