THOUSAND OAKS, Calif.- The Juniata men's volleyball team came out on top of a tightly contested four-set bout with UC Santa Cruz (20-25, 25-19, 25-21, 25-21) after dropping set one to open the Cal-Lu-Fornia Invitational at Cal Lutheran.
Margins were close across the match, with Santa Cruz hitting .203 to Juniata's .200. Across the day, there were just three aces with 31 service errors, 19 coming from Santa Cruz. UC Santa Cruz jumped out to an early lead in set one that they were able to maintain to the finish of the set, and the same held true for Juniata with their set two and three victories. Juniata found themselves down 14-19 in set four before stringing together an 11-2 run riddled with Santa Cruz errors to secure the match.
Kevin Duffy III was highly productive offensively and defensively on the day, posting a .421 hitting percentage with ten kills, a solo block, and four block assists, leading Juniata in hitting percentage and total blocks. Fellow middle hitter Luke Hoffman provided similar figures with a .412 hitting percentage, ten kills, four digs, and three block assists. Tyler Goldsborough had a team-high of 16 kills.
Jeremiah Burden and Max Cooley each had ten digs on the day, while Reese Ganter had 42 assists.
Santa Cruz kept Juniata to a .083 hitting percentage and made use of a four-point run at 8-8 to jump out to an 8-12 advantage they held to the finish. That run saw two Eagles attack errors and two Slugs kills before Juniata called timeout. The sides went on to trade points for much of the middle stages, with Juniata getting back to two down at 16-18, 18-20, and 19-21. Santa Cruz then tallied a kill and made use of two Eagles attack errors to get to the set point. Cooley recorded a kill before a set error handed the Slugs the set.
Set two saw Juniata post a match-best .360 hitting percentage to the Slugs' .172 with a match-low four attack errors for Juniata. The Eagles started set two with a three-point run to get to 4-1, eventually going ahead by five at 10-5. Santa Cruz got back within two at 15-13 on a run that saw two big blocks from the Slugs and three of the Eagles' four attack errors in the set. A Juniata service error was followed by back-to-back Santa Cruz kills to get within one, and the sides traded points a couple of times. A four-point run for Juniata with two kills apiece from Cooleu and Duffy got the Eagles back to a 22-17 lead that they maintained to a 25-19 finish on a Santa Cruz service error.
Set three saw the Slugs stay within one up to 20-19 before falling off for a 25-21 final score. A Goldsborough-Hoffman block was followed by back-to-back Goldsborough kills to get Juniata up 3-0. They maintained this small gap for a time before a couple of two-point runs for Santa Cruz got them level at ten each. They never quite claimed the lead, with Juniata getting back up by four at 17-13 on back-to-back blocks before a 5-2 run got Slugs back within one.
The sides scrapped through set four, with each posting a hitting percentage below .150 and seven lead changes, with Juniata putting together a six-point run to make up a three-point deficit before claiming the victory on a handling error. The sides continuously traded points early, with no one taking a sizable lead until the Slugs strung together four on a service error, block, Juniata attack error, and a kill. A later three-point run gave them their biggest lead, 14-19, but the Eagles regained compusure on a service error and block from Hoffman and Campbell Gerdeman. A Juniata service error was followed by a four-point Eagles run that saw two Slugs attack errors and an ace and a kill from Goldsborough. Santa Cruz called timeout at this point but continued to concede errors on Juniata's 5-1 run to the set victory.
The Eagles play a pair of matches to round out the Cal-Lu-Fornia Invite tomorrow. They start the day with a 1:00 pm EST match against St. Norbert before wrapping up the day at 6:00 pm EST against hosts #18 Cal Lutheran.
