GREENEVILLE, Tenn. — The Tusculum men’s volleyball team withstood Quincy on Tuesday (Jan. 21) night as libero Taylor West became the first in program history to record 500 career digs.
The Pioneers (2-5) took the Hawks (2-1) from the ranks of the unbeaten by scores of 29-27, 15-25, 25-21, 25-21.
Aleksandar Sosa led Quincy with 13 kills, followed by Tomas Badan and Barnabas Fenyvesi with seven apiece. Armaan Dosanjh set the final three frames, recording 24 assists, while Sosa also landed four service aces. Libero Victor Scherer recorded a match-best 13 digs as Relja Milosavljevic aided in six blocks defensively.
Deklan Wingo broke the program’s single-match kill record with 28 on a .510 hitting percentage. Morgan Makovec (7), Joel Dubinsky (3), Kevin Blankenship (3), Riley Wisniakowski (3), Kai Williams (2), Aiden Roper (2), and Caleb Hammann (1) accounted for the remaining 21 kills. Wisniakowski set the majority of the match, coming off the bench to tally 26 assists. Three Pioneers notched an ace: Makovec, Wisniakowski, and Hammann. Needing just two digs to create history, West finished the match with 11. Blankenship collected his first career double-double with 12 assists and 10 digs. At the net, a trio for TU was credited with three blocks: Wingo, Makovec, and Hammann.
Quincy hit .163 as a team with 45 kills and 24 errors on 129 total attempts. Tusculum hit .203 with 49 kills, 22 errors, and 133 total attacks. The Hawks led the match in service aces (11-3) and total blocks (13.5-8), while the Pioneers tallied more assists (45-42) and digs (53-46).
The match was a tussle from the start as the first set featured 16 ties and nine lead changes while also needing overtime. Wingo started the record night with an errorless 7-for-12. Neither team had more than a two-point advantage until a Quincy kill at 18-16. Down 20-17, Tusculum went on a 4-0 run due to three errors by the Hawks and a Williams kill. The teams jostled for position as Quincy had three set-points in a row and Tusculum capitalized on its second chance with three-straight scores.
The Hawks led the second set from start to finish, holding the Pioneers to a -.036 clip. Quincy’s defense was credited with 5.5 rejections and the service game landed four aces. Wingo was responsible for five of TU’s seven kills in the frame. A Tusculum service error kicked off a six-point run by QU at 18-13. A Hawk attack error and a Roper kill provided the remaining scores for the Pioneers in set two.
Tusculum’s defense loomed large in the third set, racking up 16 digs and five blocks. Wingo (8), Makovec (3), and Blankenship (3) landed all of the TU kills in the set. Both ties and the lone lead change happened within the first 10 points of the frame. A rejection by Wisniakowski and Makovec, as part of a 6-1 spurt, swung the lead to the Pioneers at 5-4. The home team’s lead grew to as much as eight at 24-16 before a self-induced error by the Hawks ended a 5-0 run.
Set four was easily the best offensive frame for Tusculum, hitting .306, highlighted by errorless efforts by Wingo (8-for-10), Makovec (3-for-4), and Wisniakowski (3-for-5). The set saw six ties and three lead changes as neither team had more than a three-point gap until 22-18 in TU’s favor. Quincy made an attempt at the service line to close the advantage but a pair of kills by Wingo and Wisniakowski’s match-winning ace sealed the victory.
Tusculum returns to the road for four-straight matches after its week off. The Pioneers start with North Greenville on January 28 in a 7 p.m. contest against the Trailblazers.
