GOSHEN, Ind. — The Goshen College men's volleyball team won its second straight match on Saturday, winning 13 of the first 14 points to set the tone and never trailing in a 25-7, 25-13, 25-15 win over Cornerstone University at Ruth Gunden Gymnasium.
Alexander Rabadzhiev rattled off 11 kills, Lucas Sauder had 9 and Elias Baer added 7 to lead the Maple Leafs (2-1). Sauder led all players with 5 aces while Brayton Yoder chipped in 15 digs and Michael Wahl, aptly named, led all players with 4 blocks.
Goshen finished with 33 kills, 9 blocks and 13 aces, accounting for 55 of its 75 points on winning methods. Nineteen of Cornerstone's 35 points were Maple Leaf errors.
Wahl led all players with 26 assists while Yoder contributed 2 and Rabadzhiev had the other. Rabadzhiev and Yoder also added 3 aces each.
David Kerkstra recorded five of the 14 kills allotted to Cornerstone (0-1), which was playing its first match in program history. Cade Meza added 4 kills and one of the team's two aces; Jacob Brinks, who led CU with 7 digs, had the other one.
While the teams are both members of the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference, Saturday's match did not count in the conference standings; the meetings on Thursday, Feb. 11 and Saturday, March 27 will be the official WHAC matches.
The match began inauspiciously at 4:35:54 p.m. Eastern Standard Time with a Cornerstone foot fault before Goshen doubled its lead on a Sauder kill. Following a service error that gave the Golden Eagles their first point, the Leafs ran off 11 consecutive points.
Goshen also added a 4-0 run later in the first set to go up 19-4 and finished the set with four straight points once again.
The Maple Leafs opened a 12-5 lead in the second set on back-to-back blocks that involved Wahl, Andy Bennett and Sauder. The margin reached 21-8 before Cornerstone answered with its first run, taking five of the next six points, only for a Sauder kill and two attack errors to put the hosts up 2-0 in the match.
GC spread the wealth in the third set, using a Will Gaby block to go up 4-2 and an Ian Fox ace to make it 13-8. Gaby and Joel Plank both had blocks later in the set and Insee Akarapan played the bulk of the set on his birthday.
All told, 13 Goshen players got into the match. The Maple Leafs forced Cornerstone into 21 hitting errors against 14 kills while committing 5 miscues themselves.
Goshen is now idle until it welcomes ninth-ranked Aquinas College on Wednesday, Jan. 27. The festivities will commence at 7 p.m. with the reading of the lineups following soon thereafter inside Ruth Gunden Gymnasium.
