Buffalo, NY – The D'Youville men's volleyball team started off their 2017 season with a win on Tuesday evening, defeating the Hilbert Hawks 3-0 in a Buffalo Cup match.

The first set was controlled D'Youville early on. They held a 4-0 lead over Hilbert before the Hawks would come back to tie the set at 6-6. From that point on, the Spartans began to pull away. D'Youville would go on a 12-3 scoring run to take an 18-9 lead and eventually go on to win the first set 25-17.

D'Youville was dominant in the second set. They jumped out to a 6-1 lead and then went up 10-4 before going on an even bigger scoring run. They outscored Hilbert 15-5 throughout the rest of the set to win the second set 25-8.

Hilbert began the third set by jumping out to a 5-2 lead. A few points later, the Spartans tied it at 8-8 and took the lead at 12-11 before the Hawks regained the lead at 16-13. D'Youville would then rally to take overtake Hilbert to lead 20-16. The two teams would play a close third as the Hawks pulled to within one of the Spartans at 24-23, but D'Youville would finish the set and the match with the next point, winning the third 25-23 and the match 3-0.

Junior Pat Stroh (Hamburg, NY/Hamburg) led the team with eight kills and six digs in his first appearance as a Spartan. Senior Collin McMahon (Grand Island, NY/Grand Island) led the team with 20 assists, adding three kills and three digs. Ryan Kilijanski (West Seneca, NY/West Seneca West) had four assists in the match to go with his five digs.

Also adding four kills was Ed Kerber (Cheektowaga, NY/Cheektowaga), while Zach Bochacki (West Seneca, NY/West Seneca) was second on the team with five kills. Logan Krass (Oswego, NY/Oswego), Stroh, Bochacki and McMahon each recorded two total blocks. Chance MacDowell (Bloomfield, NY/Bloomfield) had five digs with James Zeiger (Lancaster, NY/Lancaster) adding three kills and Karl Jauch (Lockport, NY/Starpoint) adding one.

The next match for the men comes on Wednesday, February 8 at 7pm as they travel to Hilbert.