SHEBOYGAN, Wis. - The Marian men's volleyball squad (5-4, 3-2 MCVL) opened with a first set win on the road at Lakeland but the Muskies battled back to earn the Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League win with set scores of 24-26, 25-23, 25-17, and 25-10.

The opening two sets were highley contested and were ultimately decided by the two-point minimum.  Marian started the match with a 14-13 lead before Lakeland opened up the largest lead of the set at 21-16.  The Muskies rode their lead out to 23-19 before the Sabres began their comeback.  MU quickly put together a 3-0 run to cut the lead to one, two kills from Jon Smallpage, but the Muskies stalled the run and gave themselves a pair of set point opportunities at 24-22.  The Sabres had an answer, however, as they scored the next four points to take the set at 26-24.

The second set was extremely similar as Lakeland opened up an 18-13 lead only to see it dwindled down by a 5-1 Marian run.  The back-and-forth set led the Muskies to another 24-22 lead, but this time Lakeland was able to hold off the Sabres and take the set at 25-23.

The final pair of sets proved to be all Lakeland as the Muskies hit .318 in the third and .389 in the fourth set, while forcing Marian into a combined 21 attacking errors between the two sets.

Aaron Wendels had a double-double in the match with 12 kills and 14 digs, while Smallpage had a match-high 17 kills in the loss.  At the net, Jon Sattersten had five total blocks.

Marian hits the road for a pair of non-conference matches this weekend in the Chicago area.  Marian opens with St. Xavier Friday, Feb. 19 at 6 p.m. followed by Illinois Tech Saturday, Feb. 20 at 5 p.m.

--FightBlueFight--