GOSHEN, Ind. — The Goshen College men's volleyball team hit its way through the deciding set, getting 11 of its final 15 points on kills in a match that went the distance Friday night as it topped Siena Heights University in five sets in a Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference match at Ruth Gunden Gymnasium.
Goshen dropped a tight first set and took the lead after three sets before trailing just once in the deciding set. The final score was 22-25, 27-25, 25-19, 22-25, 15-12.
Alexander Rabadzhiev finished with a match-high 27 kills and the Maple Leafs finished with 66 winners to the Saints' 63. Andy Bennett led all players with 6 blocks while Christian Rodriguez and Michael Wahl had 2 aces apiece; Wahl also led the team with 53 assists to run his collegiate total to 1,869.
Goshen (11-5, 5-2), which entered the match as the 15th-ranked team in the NAIA, hit .243 for the night while holding the Saints (4-3, 2-3) to .190. The Maple Leafs hit .200 or better in every set, peaking at .563 in the third.
Siena Heights had the match leader in assists, as Keegan Crawford had 56, and in digs, where Joudiel Poveymirow chipped in 31. Crawford added 16 digs for the double-double; Alex Garavalia did the same with 17 kills and 14 digs.
Rabadzhiev (13 digs) and Wahl (14) also had double-doubles for GC, which got a team-high 17 digs from Brayton Yoder.
The first set was tied five times before the Saints went on a 5-0 run on Jack Pranckus' serve. While Goshen would come back to tie the set at 14, then served to tie the set three more ties, the Maple Leafs were unable to convert on any of the tying chances and went down 1-0 in the match.
Goshen jumped to a 3-0 lead in the second set, eventually leading 14-7 and 17-11 before a Saint spurt put them up 22-20. Wahl's ace tied the score at 22, the first of four straight ties, and a Bennett kill saved a set point to make it 25-all. Rabadzhiev's ace gave Goshen its first set point and Bennett leveled the match with another winner.
The teams traded runs early in the third set before tying the score at 10, 11, 12, 13 and 15. That's when Rodriguez subbed into the match, fired an ace on his first serve and nearly did it again on his second. Ian Fox added a kill on a 5-0 run; Bennett and Elias Baer had two blocks in the last five points as GC ripped off a second straight set.
Eight kills and a block in the first 16 rallies put SHU up 10-6 in the fourth before back-to-back Sauder winners brought Goshen within 10-9. Rodriguez's second ace cut the lead to a point at 13-12 before SHU ripped off four straight points punctuated by a solo Bryce Johnson block. The Maple Leafs answered with four out of five points to get within 21-20 and then got a service error to pull within 22-21.
While the Maple Leafs thought they tied the set on a Saint lift in the ensuing rally, play was allowed to continue and Kevin Gomez doubled the SHU lead with a kill. Johnson and Gomez added kills to level the match. For the fourth time this season, the second time in conference play and the second time in eight days, GC would have to go the distance.
Sauder and Rabadzhiev gave Goshen its first three points of the final set and a Baer-Bennett block brigade made it 4-2 before the teams alternated the next 10 points. Two Goshen errors tied the set at 9 and a Johnson spike gave the Saints the lead.
That margin would not last, though: a Rabadzhiev kill tied the score again and Bennett won three of the next five rallies for GC. Baer added a kill and Wahl helped with a block.
Goshen needed two tries to win the match: Rabadzhiev barely missed the corner of the court on his serve, making it 14-12, but Wahl finished the job one point later.
Siena Heights finished with 12 blocks to Goshen's 9, but the Saints also committed 21 hitting errors that were not blocks while the Maple Leafs had only 11. Both teams were well underwater at the service line: SHU finished with 2 aces and 8 errors while GC had 6 and 18 respectively. There were no ball-handling errors called in the match.
The Maple Leafs go out of conference play on Saturday when Maranatha Baptist University, an NCAA Division III school from Watertown, Wisconsin, visits Ruth Gunden Gymnasium. First serve is set for 3 p.m. in what is believed to be the first meeting between the schools in any sport.
