PALOS HEIGHTS, Ill. — Lucas Sauder led the Goshen College Maple Leafs with 13 kills along with 2 blocks and an ace Thursday night as GC swept Trinity Christian College 25-22, 27-25, 25-22 in a matchup of two teams receiving votes in the NAIA men's volleyball coaches poll at DeVos Gymnasium.
Alexander Rabadzhiev added 11 kills to go with 3 assists and a team-high 15 digs. Brayton Yoder added 14 digs and 3 assists while Michael Wahl contributed 33 assists to lead all players.
Unlike the season opener last Friday, which saw Goshen take the lead in the first set, the Maple Leafs had to come back from a 12-8 deficit in the opening period after the Trolls went on a 7-2 run. Trinity Christian (0-1) led by five points as late as 17-12 in the first set, but the Maple Leafs won 11 of the next 15 points to pull ahead.
Back-to-back Elias Baer kills brought the Maple Leafs (1-1) within 17-16 before the Trolls regained their footing, going up 19-17 and then 21-19. Wahl and Ian Fox combined on a block three points later to give the Maple Leafs the lead for the first time since 6-5 and Nick Yutzy added an ace to make it 23-21.
Sauder finished the set with a kill and an ace on back-to-back points.
Trinity took a 9-6 lead in the second set as well before a Rabadzhiev kill and two Troll errors brought Goshen back to 9-all. That started a 10-2 run which included kills by Sauder and Baer to put GC ahead 16-11 when all was said and done.
While the Maple Leafs led by four points as late as 22-18, this time it was the Trolls' turn to come back. Ben Gabor had three kills and a block while serving the last two points of a 5-1 run which ended with a Bartlomiej Maciczak block to tie the set at 23.
Kills by Sauder and Fox gave Goshen two set points, but the Trolls saved them. On the first extra point after a 25-all deadlock, Wahl and Rabadzhiev hooked up for the winner and then Wahl made sure it stuck with the set-ending kill.
The teams traded runs to start the third set, with Trinity going up 4-0 before Goshen answered with five straight points. The set was tied at eight of nine possible opportunities between 5-5 and 13-13. TCC got kills from Gabor and Djordje Novakovic in a 4-1 run before Andy Bennett added two blocks and a kill in a 9-2 spurt to go up 23-19.
Sauder and Baer added the last two kills of the match.
Each team hit well in the second set, with Goshen racking up 19 kills and Trinity Christian 16, before posting 10 kills and 9 errors apiece in the third. Goshen finished with edges of 42-35 in kills and 51-34 in digs while the team was actually outblocked 7-5.
Gabor led Trinity Christian with 14 kills to go with 2 blocks. Novakovich added 8 kills and 6 digs while Maciczak led all players with 5 blocks.
Goshen returns to Ruth Gunden Gymnasium on Saturday to host Cornerstone University in a non-conference match; while the two teams are both members of the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference, they will meet twice later in the season and those matches will count toward the conference schedule. First serve is set for 4:30 p.m. in the first match ever for the Golden Eagles.
