Feb. 28, 2007

Box Score

Stockton, Calif. - Behind career nights from senior Garrett Morales (Long Beach, Calif.) and sophomore Maor Nutkevitch (Ra'anana, Israel) the Pacific men's volleyball team came away with a 3-1 win over St. Francis on Wednesday, February 28. With the win the Tigers improved to 9-9 overall while the Red Flash fell to 7-6 on the season.

Game scores for the match were: 30-25, 30-25, 29-31, 38-36.

Both teams came out of the gates red hot offensively, as the Tigers hit .519 in game one, while the Red Flash hit .435. The Tigers took game one 30-25 and followed that victory up with another 30-25 victory in game two, as Pacific continued its hot attacking, hitting .425 for the game.

Saint Francis came back to take game three 31-29 as they held the Tigers to a .122 hitting percentage, while forcing 11 Pacific errors. Pacific had match point at 29-28 but rallied off three straight points to win the game and force game four.

The fourth game was an exciting battle as both teams had multiple opportunites to put away the game. The Tigers were able to hold on during two Saint Francis game points to tie the game back at 35-35. With the score 36-36, Pacific got the final two points on a kill and a service ace from junior Pekka Seppanen (Kuopio, Finland) to finally put away the Red Flash.

For Pacific, Morales tied a career-high with 71 assists while Nutkevitch posted a career-best 20 kills in the match. Seppanen ended the night with 24 kills, while seniors Matt Cornell (Granada Hills, Calif.) and Dan Hammer (Glendale, Wisc.) and junior Simon Chen-Byerley (Northfield, Ill.) added 13, 11, and 12 kills respectively.

Saint Francis was led by Jordan Varee who tallied 17 kills, while Marc Honore added 12 kills and 12 block assists.