Rio men clobber Cougars

Rio Grande Sports Information
     RIO GRANDE, Ohio - The University of Rio Grande ran its winning streak to four straight matches, cruising to a 3-1 (25-17, 25-22, 22-25, 25-14) rout of Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Tuesday night, in non-conference men's volleyball action at the Newt Oliver Arena.
     Rio Grande, which completed a regular season sweep of the Cougars, improved to 8-3 with the victory.
     Mount Vernon Nazarene dropped to 1-9 with the loss.
     The Cougars had a positive attack percentage in only one of the four sets in the contest and finished with a -.029 swing figure (29 kills, 32 errors, 105 attacks).
     Rio Grande hit .202 for the match with 44 kills, 23 errors and 104 swings.
     The RedStorm trailed 13-12 in the opening set after a kill by MVNU's Ethan Cline, but grabbed the early match lead by scoring 12 of the final 17 winners in the period.
     Rio also trailed 18-15 in set two, but finished on a 10-4 run to grab a commanding match lead.
     Mount Vernon Nazarene turned the tide in set three, rallying from a 16-12 with an 8-3 spurt to grab a 20-19 advantage following a kill by Austin Kolaczkowski.
     The Cougars maintained the lead for the remainder of the set to keep the match alive, but failed in their efforts to continue the momentum into the fourth stanza.
     Rio Grande bolted to a 7-1 lead out of the gate and MVNU got no closer than three - 8-5 following a Noah Wineberg service ace - for the remainder of the night.
     Senior Daniel Bedoya (Acacias, Colombia) led Rio with 14 kills, while freshman Daniel Rivas (Valle Del Cauca, Colombia) had 11 kills, a trio of service aces, a solo block and two block assists.
     Junior Mitch Bartecki (Valparaiso, IN) contributed 41 assists to the winning effort, while freshman Maaz Khan (Peshawar, Pakistan) had 22 digs, senior Tyler Miller-Bross (Loveland, OH) had a solo block and two block assists and senior Cam Griffith (Columbus, OH) had four block assists.
     Wineberg had six kills and three aces to lead MVNU, while Jackson Bush also tallied six kills in a losing cause.
     Kolaczkowski had 18 assists for the Cougars, while Tyler Monnin had 10 digs and Hayvin Larison was credited with a solo block and five block assists.
     Rio Grande will return to action this weekend with a two-game River States Conference road swing which begins at Georgetown College on Friday night.
     First serve is set for 7 p.m. at Davis-Reid Alumni Gym.