VOLLEYBALL (M)

4/2/10 - #2 Royals Defend Home Tuft Against #3 Wolves

By Tim Gooszen
Photo by Liza Rosales

Fullerton, CA- A career night from Junior Jordan Doolittle was the difference for #2 Hope International in Friday’s match against #3 Cardinal Stritch as he recorded 10 kills and four blocks while hitting .500.  The Royals took the match in four sets (30-28, 21-30, 30-27, 30-24).

The first set saw the Royals (11-8) and Wolves (22-9) produce four ties and just one lead change.  But the lead change at 9-8 was in the Royals favor and they took off and ran with the set from there.  Interestingly enough the lead change came a service error by Cardinal Stritch- one of 22 service errors for them on the night.  While Senior Alex Figueiredo led the Royals with 6 kills in the set, the buzz in the gym was the play of Doolittle, pictured, who buried three of his four attempts to hit .750 for the set.

Set two saw the Royals strike first on a kill by Freshman Johannes Fuchs.  But by the score of 4-3, the set had seen three lead changes with the Wolves moving in front.  Though the Royals would tie the set at 5-5, the defense of the Wolves with 5 blocks, 12 digs, and forcing 11 hitting errors gave CSU all the set momentum.  When the dust settled, the Wolves out hit the Royals .312 to -.050 to take the set.

Senior Cory Hindemit and Freshman Bernard Luna with two kills each were the only Royals with more than one kill.

Sophomore Kaimi Guerreiro carried the Royals in the third set by putting away five of his eight attempts without an error.  In all, Hope International committed just three errors as a team for the set as they out hit Cardinal Stritch .414 to .222.  The set featured 8 ties and one lead change once again in the Royals favor.

Doolittle and Guerreiro both banged out 4 kills to make sure the fourth set would be the final set.  For Guerreiro, he finished the night with a team high 13 kills.

Juniors Danilo Pereira and Andrew Marques had 32 and 19 assists respectively.

On defense, Senior Noah Casaquit led the way with 18 digs.

The Wolves actually had 13 more kills (69- 56) for the match than the Royals on the strength of their three headed monster of Scott Golden (20 kills), Vladimir Frenc (18 kills), and Austin Cass (16 kills).

With the match ending at 9:00 pm local time, the two teams will have just 17 hours before they go head-to-head again as they have a 2:00 pm first serve scheduled for Saturday inside the Darling Pavilion.

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