The Lindenwood Lions men’s volleyball team (1-0) opened up their season on Friday with a 3-0 sweep (25-19, 25-23, 25-20) of Rokchurst (0-1).
Lindenwood hit. 385 for the match and had two Lions with double-digit kills with Brendan Louthain having 13 and Ian Schuller with 11. For Louthain, those 13 kills were a career-high for the junior. Owen Walsh had eight kills and Carter Stenmark tallied seven as overall six different Lions posted a kill in the match. The Lions also had four aces and six blocks as a team, holding Rockhurst to a .260 hit percentage within the match. Lincoln Geist led the defensive effort for the Lions tallying 13 digs within the match and a team Lindenwood had 31.
Lindenwood got out to a hot start in the first set winning the race to 10 following a Walsh kill as the Lions gained control early with a 10-4 lead. The Lions controlled the set from start to finish and grew their lead to as large as nine following a Schuller ace to give the Lions an 18-9 lead. However, the Hawks would find a spark and close the lead to five at 21-16 but the Lions would be able to close out the set behind a kill from Louthain, and a pair of service errors from the Hawks.
The second set saw both teams going back and forth at each other, with the score knotted up at 6-6 early before a nice 7-1 run by the Lions put them up 13-7. The Hawks however would not go away and claw their way back to within one at 21-20 after a couple of kills from Lucas Tran and Shay Spadaro. Schuller and Louthain though would pull the black and gold to the finish and a 25-23 set two win closing out the set with kills from each of them.
With the Lions firmly up 2-0 in the match, they would save their best play for last hitting a match-high .478 to close out the sweep. Lindenwood led 10-8 early and 15-13 at the media timeout as the Lions were able to answer any run the Hawks went on with one of their own. Schuller would punctuate a couple of kills to give Lindenwood a 20-15 lead before the Hawks roared back on a 5-1 run to pull within one at 21-20 forcing a Lindenwood timeout. Out of the timeout the Lions would go on a 4-1 run to close out the set and the match behind kills from Schuller, Zach Soloman, and Stenmark.
The Lions will be back in action at home on Wednesday, Jan. 15 as they play host to Long Beach State starting at 7:00 p.m. streaming on ESPN+.
