CHICAGO, Ill. – The Illinois Tech men's volleyball team welcome Marian into the Keating Sports Center on Wednesday evening, falling 3-1.

Scores

• Marian 3, Tech 1 (15-25, 25-16, 27-29, 21-25)

How it Happened

• The Sabres executed early and led 13-7.  Jon Smallpage led Marian with four kills in the first half of the first set.  Tech managed to close the gap to four but that was as close as the Scarlet Hawks could get. Smallpage added two more kills to finish with six for the set and the Sabres led from start to finish with a 25-15 win.
• The Scarlet Hawks began the second set better, leading 3-1 right away. Cinjun Coe and Lukasz Kupiec earned two of those initial points off kills.  Tech extended the lead to five at 9-4, once again propelled by two more kills by Coe.  Marian came back to within two but Tech quickly regained at five point lead 17-12. The home team would never relinquish the lead and fueled by Coe's eight kills in the set, won handily 25-16.
• Tech repeated the early success from the second set and grabbed a four point lead to start the third.  However, Marian quickly erased that deficit to tie the game at 6-6.  From there, the Sabres went up two after several errors by Tech. But the Hawks tied the game at 11, as the score swung back and forth.  Neither team could gain more than a one point advantage until the Scarlet Hawks took a 20-18 lead which grew to three at 22-19.  Once again, though, the Sabres rebounded to tie the set at 23.  The match naturally extended past 25 as both teams battled to the end.  Marian was able to secure the win 29-27 after two Tech errors at the end.
• The fourth set picked up after the third set, as both teams found themselves tied at six in the early stages.  Tech's Andriy Bench had three kills to start the fourth set and both teams matched each other to a 12-12 score.  Unsurprisingly, the set reached an 18-18 tie before the Sabres went up 20-18.  Marian held down the Hawks comeback and closed out the set and match from there with a 25-21 win.

Scarlet Hawk Standouts

• Coe led the Scarlet Hawks with 21 kills on a .293 attack percentage.  He added an ace, a block assist and eight digs
• Kupiec ended with 14 kills on a .231 attack percentage with two assists and seven digs
• Bench had nine kills on a team-high .444 attack percentage plus four blocks and an ace
• Daniel Throop had 26 digs and 11 digs

Stats to Know

• Tech led in terms of kills 49-47 and attack percentage .208 to .197
• Both teams had four aces and 10 total blocks
• Marian led in digs (49-46)
• Tech now has a record of 7-14

Up Next

• The Scarlet Hawks will travel to Greenville on Friday for a road match at 7:00 p.m.