RedStorm men earn split in tri-match

Rio Grande Sports Information
     WALESKA, Ga. - The University of Rio Grande men's volleyball team wrapped up its season-opening four-game road swing to Georgia by splitting a pair of matches on Saturday afternoon at Reinhardt University's James & Sis Brown Athletic Center.
     The RedStorm opened the day with a 25-16, 25-11, 25-16 loss to the host Eagles, but rebounded to post a straight sets win over Morehouse College by scores 25-20, 25-16, 25-17 and finish the weekend at 2-2.
     Against Morehouse, head coach Nick Rawls' squad finished strong in all three stanzas.
     Set one was knotted at 16-all before Rio scored nine of the final 13 winners to grab an early match lead, while the RedStorm led just 17-15 in set two before scoring eight of the final nine points.
     Rio saw an early 10-4 advantage in set three sliced to three on two separate occasions before again scoring nine of the final 13 points to finish off the match.
     Sophomore Bobby Meifert (Bolingbrook, IL) led the RedStorm with eight kills and four service aces, while freshman Mitch Bartecki (New Lenox, IL) had 25 assists and four service aces of his own.
     Junior Caden Donaldson (Jackson, OH) also had four aces and a team-best seven digs, while sophomore Tyler Miller-Bross (Loveland, OH) had one solo block and a pair of block assists.
     Morehouse tallied only one more kill (14) than it had attack errors (13) and finished with a .019 swing percentage.
     Kristopher Woods had four kills to pace the Maroon Tigers, while Devyn Hardwick had 10 assists and the duo of Jalen Campbell and Bryce Clemons tallied four digs each.
     Against Reinhardt, the RedStorm found the shoe on the other foot.
     The Eagles used 12-3 run in set one to erase a 6-5 deficit and go on for a win, while a 16-2 run by the hosts closed out set two after an early 9-9 deadlock.
     Reinhardt, which had a sizzling .479 attack percentage for the match (41 kills, 6 errors, 73 swings), jumped to a 6-1 lead in the final period and never looked back.
     Rodolfo Biegelmeyer stuffed the stat sheet for RU, totaling 13 kills, four service aces, two solo blocks and one block assist, while Bruno Dewes had 29 assists and 10 digs in the winning effort.
     Donaldson and sophomore Sam Kaylor (Lewis Center, OH) led Rio with six kills each, while Bartecki had 19 assists and sophomore Seth Mohr (Canton, OH) finished with six digs.
     Rio Grande returns to the court on Tuesday night when it travels to Carolina University. First serve is slated for 7:30 p.m.