In Short
The Loyola University Chicago men's volleyball team snapped their five-match losing streak and topped Charleston tonight, 3-1 at Gentile Arena. Cole Schlothauer (13 kills) and Kyle Piekarski (10 kills) paced the Ramblers to help them advance to 2-5 and earn Loyola its 500th program win.
 
Coach Mark Hulse's Thoughts
"I thought we played pretty well," Hulse said. "Obviously it's good to get one in the win column. We've been struggling and battling with some really, really good teams and that all sounds great but you want to win. It's a lot more fun in the locker room afterwards when you get one in the win column, so it feels good for the guys. It was pretty consistent tonight, I thought we could've maybe been a little sharper early. The bad guys responded a little bit in the third, but we did a really nice job of bouncing back in the fourth and hit the gas pedal a little bit. We worked a little harder on some things and served a whole lot better down the stretch.
 
How It Happened
Charleston took a 7-3 lead but Loyola quickly turned the tables, going on a 4-0 run and securing the lead with back-to-back aces from Kyle Piekarski to move ahead 8-7. Loyola recorded four of its 11 aces in the first set, including one from Danny Sutton Farrell to put the Ramblers up again, 13-12. The Ramblers barely looked back after that, only letting the Golden Eagles come within one point before taking off to win the set, 25-20.
 
Schlothauer set to Devin Joslyn for a back row kill to give the Ramblers the largest lead of set two, 6-4. Neither team led by two points again until Farrell and Joslyn combined for a monster block to take the lead, 17-15. Schlothauer then rocketed another ace to make it 18-15, followed by another Farrell and Joslyn block to hold the lead 19-16. The Ramblers kept up their momentum with kills from Luke Denton and Piekarski, to hit a whopping .500 percent and capture the second set, 25-18.

Charleston pulled ahead in the final points of set three to win 25-23, despite exchanging points with Loyola a majority of the set. The Ramblers had taken a 7-5 lead off a Schlothauer kill, but didn't maintain the advantage beyond that. Farrell and Ian Cowen came up with a big block to tie it 21-21 before Charleston came back and won the set.
 
Loyola excelled in the fourth set, hitting .429 percent. Joslyn opened it up with a kill to put the Ramblers up 1-0. Cowen tallied two nearly back-to-back kills in the fourth set, tricking the Charleston defense to put Loyola up, 4-3. The Ramblers slightly halted at one point, falling behind 7-5 before going on a 6-1 scoring run and forcing a Charleston timeout. The Ramblers went on another 3-0 scoring run to take the lead, 16-11. Kyle Piekarski tallied three kills in the final points to lead Loyola to victory in the set, 25-17 and the match.
 
A Look At The Numbers
- As a team, Loyola tallied a season-high 11 service aces from six different Ramblers. The last time Loyola recorded over ten aces was on April 6, 2019 against Quincy. The Loyola single-game record for aces is 16, set on January 16, 2006.
- Schlothauer led the Ramblers in kills for the seventh game this season. He now boasts a total of 104 kills.
- Danny Sutton Farrell and Devin Joslyn posted four blocks a piece.
- Piekarski recorded a season-high ten kills and posted a career-high four aces.

 
Up Next
The Ramblers host Urbana tomorrow night at 7 p.m. at Gentile Arena. The Blue Knights are in their inaugural season and will face Loyola for the first time in program history.