VOLLEYBALL (M)

3/11/10 - Royals Pull Off Comeback

By Tim Gooszen

Fullerton, CA- After going through the motions in first two sets on Thursday night, the Royals woke up and pulled off the comeback in their 3-2 win (28-30, 26-30, 30-27, 30-23, 15-12) over Philadelphia Biblical.  Sophomore Kaimi Guerreiro had a HUGE match with 20 kills and 26 digs.

The first set was up for grabs from the word go as the set featured 18 tied scores and 9 lead changes.  Neither team led by more three points the entire set.  In the end, the Royals (7-8) took the set loss because they hit .220 while the Crimson Eagles (16-7) hit. 319.  No Royal had more than 3 kills in the set while Justin Brubaker had 10 kills for PBU.  That was a sign of things to come as Brubaker would finish the match with a whooping 42 kills.

Set two lacked excitement for the Royals as they would allow the Eagles take the lead from the beginning and force just two early ties.  Guerreiro put away 5 kills on 8 attacks in the set.

Down 3-1 early in the third set, the Royals finally decided to snap out of it and start playing.  From that point, Hope International used an 11-1 run to turn the tide in the set and theoretically the match.  Though, the Eagles would tighten the match in the later third, HIU would not give back the lead.  Junior Brett Massetti had a big set with 7 kills.

The fourth set was owned by the Royals who lead from first serve of the set all the way through the last serve.  They lead by as many as ten points at two or three different points with the final time coming at 22-12.  While Guerreiro had six kills, Senior Cory Hindemit hammered out 5 kills on 6 attempts and Sophomore Andrew Speth had four kills of his own.

In the winner takes all fifth set, the Eagles took the first point and teased the Royals by allowing them to tie the score on six different occasions.  Finally when the Royals took the lead at 7-6 it was for good.  Guerreiro had four kills and Massetti had three.

When all was said and done, the Royals finished the night with five players in double digit kills with Freshman Bernard Luna (11 kills) joining Guerreiro, Massetti (19), Hindemit (17), and Speth (11).

As a team, the Royals out dug the Eagles 81-61 with Senior Noah Casaquit and Junior Henry Valiente joining Guerreiro in double digit digs with 16 and 11 respectively.

The two teams will have very little time to miss each other as they will play each other again on Friday night.  First serve is scheduled for 7:00 pm in the Darling Pavilion.

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