[Men's Volleyball] SAU survives in five sets to set up big match Thursday

Coming off back-to-back losses to top-10 opponents, including one Monday night, and facing an important match in two nights, the No. 4-ranked Bees did just enough late to hold off Trinity Christian 3-2 Tuesday night in Lee Lohman Arena.

St. Ambrose rallied from a 2-1 deficit to post a 25-16, 25-27, 18-25, 25-17, 15-9 victory to move to 16-6 overall and 7-1 in the CCAC.

That sets up a showdown Thursday when the Bees will host No. 8 Cardinal Stritch (14-6, 7-1 CCAC) in a matchup of the two teams tied atop the conference standings.

To get there, SAU came out strong in the fourth set, winning the first six points, two of those coming on Nathan Heller kills. Although the Trolls (8-11, 2-6 CCAC) closed the gap to a single point, the Bees maintained the lead throughout the set. A Jaylen Clark kill was followed by a block from Heller and Eric Zacher to key a three-point run as part of a larger 6-2 spurt that built an 18-12 advantage. Zach Schmidt had two late kills to send the match to a decisive fifth set.

Consecutive Trinity Christian hitting errors to open the set got St. Ambrose off to a fast start. Following a Troll serving error that gave the Bees a 6-4 lead, Levi Vermuelen helped serve SAU to a 12-4 lead. He had two aces and Clark put down four kills during the run that broke things open.

TCC fought off three set points before Clark closed out the win with his team-leading 17th kill of the night.

Clark was one of four Bees to finish with double-digit kills. Riley Anderson had 15 to go along with 12 digs. Heller recorded 12 and Vermuelen came up with 11. Schmidt narrowly missed double figures, finishing with nine.

Austin Royer led all players with 54 assists.

St. Ambrose will now play for sole possession of first place in the conference Thursday at 7 p.m.