In Short
With a valiant team effort, the Loyola University Chicago men's volleyball team downed McKendree, 3-1 tonight at Gentile Arena. Loyola posted a season-high 11.5 blocks while numerous Ramblers contributed to the victory. Cole Schlothauer recorded a career-high 22 kills, Devin Joslyn posted a double-double with 12 digs and 10 kills, Jake Maffett and Kyle Piekarski each added nine kills and Ian Cowen registered a career-high six blocks.
 
Coach Mark Hulse's Thoughts
"I thought it was a really good team win," Hulse said. "We killed a ton of volleyball's tonight, that's been tricky for us. That was probably the most collective effort we've had all year and we hit .400 as a result of it. I thought we set a nice bar for what we're trying to do."
 
How It Happened
The Ramblers played their best set all season, hitting a whopping .692 (9-0-13) percentage in the first. After an Ian Cowen ace, the Ramblers took an 8-6 lead before going on a major scoring run. Loyola won five straight points to force McKendree into a timeout with a 10-6 score. The point streak eventually moved to a 9-0 run for the Ramblers, highlighted by back-to-back aces from Maffett to move ahead 19-9. A big block from Joslyn/Piekarski/Cowen then gave the Ramblers their biggest lead, 20-9. Kyler Kotsakis entered the match later and launched an ace to bring it to 24-12 match point. Anton Frank put down a middle kill to end the set and give Loyola a 25-13 victory.
 
Loyola started with a 2-0 lead in the second set, as the Ramblers went out of their routine with a set from Schlothauer to Joslyn for the kill. After going back and forth in the beginning of the set, McKendree went on a 3-0 run to take back the lead, 11-10. The teams proceeded to tie the score four times, before the Bearcats went on another 3-0 scoring run. Frank and Schlothauer then posted back-to-back kills for a 16-16- tie. McKendree jumped ahead 19-17, but Loyola came out swinging after a timeout, with kills from Schlothauer and Maffett to tie it again, 19-19. The Ramblers were able to stay with it after that as Piekarski registered back-to-back kills to put Loyola up 21-20. In the final points, Joslyn tallied an ace and Schlothauer put it away for the win, 25-22.
 
Neither team pulled ahead by more than two points in the entire third set, until McKendree came out with a 25-22 win. A Cowen/Piekarski block gave the Ramblers a 4-3 lead early in the third set. Loyola held steady with McKendree, exchanging points before Joslyn rejected the Bearcats with a huge solo block for a 9-8 lead. As McKendree gained a 16-15 lead, Schlothauer slammed a kill from the back row to tie it 16-16. Loyola took a timeout as the Bearcats took a 23-22 lead, but they would end up scoring three in a row for the victory.
 
The closeness of the third set jumped into the fourth, as both teams battled it out in the early points. The Ramblers big run started with a Piekarski/Cowen block before Piekarski set up Schlothauer for a kill. Loyola's 8-5 lead didn't stop there, as Andrew Lyons/Schlothauer/Cowen posted another big block and forced a McKendree timeout. The Ramblers eventually gained a 10-5 lead. McKendree later passed the ball over the net and Lyons came up big for a middle kill to make it 12-8 Ramblers. Loyola furthered their lead with a 3-0 run and the Bearcats called a timeout. Down the stretch, Loyola pulled ahead 22-15 and Lyons secured the final set victory for the Ramblers, tipping the ball down for a kill and then posting his first career-solo block. Loyola won, 25-12.
 
A Look At Numbers
- Schlothauer led the Ramblers with a career-high 22 kills on .462 hitting percentage.
- Joslyn posted the second double-double of his career with 12 digs and 10 kills.
- Piekarski recorded a team-best .571 hitting percentage (9-1-14) with nine kills.
- Maffett tied his career-high nine kills and tallied seven digs and two aces.
- Cowen registered a career-high six blocks and posted 44 assists.
- The Ramblers tied their season-best with 57 kills on .407 hitting percentage.
 
 
Up Next
The Maroon & Gold visit No. 5 Lewis on Saturday at 7 p.m. in Romeoville, Ill.