Boston, Mass. — The Cal Lutheran Kingsmen edged the Wentworth Leopards in straight sets Tuesday evening to extend their win streak to four. In addition, the Kingsmen have not allowed a single set to their opponents in the past four matches to record a 12-0 sweep during their east coast trip.
Justin Dietrich and Brendan Ward led the team in both kills and percentage during their toughest matchup thus far on the trip. Dietrich notched seven kills, hitting .333, while Ward added six of his own and hit .364.
The teams entered set one point-for-point, before an attack by Dietrich and three consecutive attack errors from Wentworth allowed the Kingsmen to jump out to an early 8-4 lead. A middle rally sparked by kills from Leopards' Ryan Love, though, knotted the score up at 18 and a service ace by Sean Spencer allowed Wentworth the late lead.
The lead was short lived however as Spencer erred on his next serve and again Wentworth committed three straight attacking errors. The Kinsgmen continued to capitalize on the momentum as Andrew Reina nailed a kill for the 23-19 lead, followed by a service ace from Grant Nelson and another Reina kill sealed the 25-21 win in set one.
Looking to equalize the score, Wentworth surged early in set two to a 14-8 lead behind Collin Ritter who finished with a team-leading ten kills on the day. The Kingsmen responded with a kill from Michael Campbell setting up the team for four unanswered points, cutting the deficit to two. The teams again battled point-for-point before Wentworth jumped to a 24-23 lead on a kill by Jesse Lefler. However, the Leopards could not maintain composure and gave up the set 26-24 on three consecutive attacking errors once again.
Up 2-0 in sets, Cal Lutheran entered set three looking for the sweep, but Wentworth would not go down easy and scored five unanswered points to move up 10-6. Back-to-back kills by Dietrich though ignited the Kingsmen offense who went on a 7-1 scoring run of their own. The teams eventually tied things up at 15 apiece until a bad Wentworth set gave Cal Lutheran their final lead of the night and Campbell capped off the 25-23 victory will a kill.
The Kingsmen face off against the MIT Engineers tomorrow, Wednesday, March 28th at 2 p.m. PST in their second to last game on the east coast.
Box Score: CLU 3, WIT 0
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Release by Christy Effendie, Assistant Sports Information Director
