ERIE, Pennsylvania – March 30, 2024 – Hiram matched its season-long win streak of five with a four-set win over Penn State Behrend on Saturday afternoon at the Junker Center: 18-25, 25-18, 25-21, 25-23.
It's a key victory in terms of the Terriers' playoff aspirations, as they now have a 6-1 conference record and hold sole possession of second place in the AMCC standings behind Saint Vincent (8-0). The top-two seeds in the conference tournament earn automatic berths into the semifinals of the AMCC playoff bracket.
Hiram showed steady improvement throughout the match, as it raised its hitting percentage from -.032 to .267 to .360 to .514 from the first set to the fourth set. The team combined for 20 kills in that decisive set, with
Jackson Deubner (six kills),
Jarod Leynes (four),
Garrett Scheidegger (three) and
Kyle Martini (three) all filling the stat sheet in the kill department during that span.
The rise in attack percentage could be attributed to
Matthew Albano, who set the new program record with 49 assists. He passed Andrew Diaz de Padilla's 46-assist game against Mount Union (2/23/22) and now has 1,695 career assists, which is just shy of Jake Lininger's 1,728 career assists (program record).
It was also another huge day for Deubner, who finished with a career-high 18 kills. It marked his fourth straight game with 12+ kills, which also is a career-long streak, and now gives him 244 kills for the 2024 campaign.
Martini's 10 kills in the match were spread evenly through the final three sets in the match, with three kills in each of those winning sets. Similar to Deubner, Martini has a double-digit kill total in four of his last five matches.
After losing the first set, Hiram gained control by never trailing by more than two points in the second, third and fourth sets. The final set was close, but the Terriers had a kill on each of their last nine points to seal the win.
The Terriers now have two more chances to gain ground on Saint Vincent atop the AMCC standings; the team will host Carlow on Wednesday at 7 p.m. and Thiel on Saturday at 1 p.m. inside Price Gymnasium in Hiram, Ohio.
