SAU men’s volleyball swept at home by Bluefield

LAURINBURG —The St. Andrews Knights men’s volleyball team was swept in three sets by the Bluefield Rams on Saturday morning at Harris Court. St. Andrews falls to 1-9 (1-7 against conference opponents) on the season with the loss while Bluefield improves to 11-6 (6-1 in conference games) with the victory. The Rams took both regular season meetings from St. Andrews, having also swept them back on Feb. 8.

While getting swept is clearly never a good thing, Head Coach Noah Ray thought his team performed better on Saturday than they did in their earlier season meeting against the Rams. Bluefield won two of their sets in that game by 12 and 15 points while dominating essentially every aspect of the contest.

“I think we bounced back really well, the last time we played them I think they had a field day from the service line against us,” Ray said. “I thought we did a better job of stopping the bleeding and putting up a playable ball. A lot of it is staying clean with our first contact so we can get our middles involved.”

In the first set, the Rams got the first two points before the Knights responded with three in a row, though Bluefield quickly took control with a 6-0 surge that put them up 8-3. St. Andrews would climb back in the set thanks to a 6-2 run that included four unanswered points that trimmed the margin down to one (10-9).

The Rams never panicked, immediately responding with four straight points of their own and pulled away with an 11-4 run that put them up comfortably 21-13. St. Andrews was able to bring the gap down to four at 23-19 but couldn’t get any closer than that as Bluefield took the first set 25-20.

The Knights were able to establish some momentum out of the gate of during the second set, scoring the first two points and five of the first seven. That lead didn’t last forever, however, as the Rams went on a 6-2 run that included four points in a row to give them an 8-7 advantage.

The teams then refused to pull away from each other as neither side led by more than two points until Bluefield went on a 4-0 run to put them up 20-16, though St. Andrews immediately responded with the same run to even the set at 20. The Rams would eventually take the second set 25-23.

The final set would ultimately be decided by one big run from Bluefield. They were able to turn a 7-5 deficit into a 12-7 lead by scoring seven unanswered points and never looked back. The Rams always led by at least four from that point on and cruised to the finish line, taking the final set 25-17 to complete the sweep.

Bluefield had more kills (37-29) than the Knights, committed fewer errors (10-18) and had a better hitting percentage during each set of the game. Khushpreet Sandhu led the Knights in kills with 11 and also had four digs. Nicholas Scorzo led the team in digs with 11 while Kaleb Middleton dished out all 28 assists that St. Andrews had.

The error numbers are one that popped out to Ray on the stat sheet. While St. Andrews had some momentum during the second set especially, Ray thought that his team didn’t play well enough with the advantage they did have and got a bit too comfortable.

“They don’t know what it feels like to be ahead,” Ray said. “When they are ahead, we can’t get complacent. We didn’t respond well to the lead, we let the high ride and didn’t want to earn it.”

St. Andrews will look to rebound on Tuesday night when they travel for a matchup with Regent University. The game is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. It will be the first of three straight road games for the Knights, with their next home contest being on Tuesday, April 1, ironically also against Regent.

Ray does not want this loss to affect the Knights’ mindset. Remaining in the right headspace is paramount for Ray and company while they hit the road again after recently getting back from a trip to the Sunshine State (Florida).

“We have to stay really headstrong, especially with the travel,” Ray said. “We have a couple of really good opponents coming up in the next week or two, we’ve got to play clean.”