Box Score

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (April 1, 2015) – The Vassar College men's volleyball team finished its 2015 United Volleyball Conference (UVC) slate Wednesday evening, knocking off local rival Bard College in three games in action from Kenyon Hall. The Brewers breezed by the Raptors with scores of 25-12, 25-21 and 25-14.

Vassar (16-12, 3-5 UVC) clinched a winning season with the victory on Wednesday, as the Brewers used a combination of solid hitting and timely serving to take the win. VC opened the match with the first four points, but Bard (8-19, 0-8 UVC) rallied with three straight points to make the score 4-3.

From the point, the Brewers went on a 15-4 stretch on the power of seven kills to take a commanding 20-7 advantage. Vassar would cruise to the win, as sophomore Christian Lizana (Dublin, PA/Pennridge) led the Brewer attack with five kills in the opening set.

The second set was much closer though, as the Raptors forced Vassar into .074 hitting during the stanza. Vassar led for much of the set, but Bard rallied to trim the Vassar bulge to 17-16 after a setting error by the Brewers. Vassar tallied four of the next five points, two coming from Lizana to take a 21-17 advantage.

BC again battled back to pull to within two on a pair of occasions, but VC was able pull away though as Vassar clinched the game on a block by juniors Reno Kriz (Breinigsville, PA/Parkland) and Erik Halberg (Newark, DE/Salesianum). The Brewers would control the final set of the match, hitting a match-high .467 in the set to earn the win.

Vassar College got a match-high nine kills from freshman Jorge Rivera (San Juan, PR/Cupeyville), needing just 11 swings to get to his total. Lizana added seven kills, and Kriz also had six kills as he moved into eighth all-time (952) in terminations at Vassar, passing the 951 of Joe Pyne '14.

Senior Colin White-Dzuro (Toronto, Ontario, Canada/Royal St. George) had a team-best eight digs to go with 10 assists, and freshman Zechariah Lee (Santa Clarita, CA/Saugus) posted 17 helpers in the win. Freshman Matthew Knigge (New Egypt, NJ/New Egypt) added five terminations, three assisted blocks and a team-best four service aces.

The Brewers attacked at a .312 hitting percentage Wednesday, posting 36 total kills on 77 attacks while committing 12 errors. The five finishes by Jesse Small led Bard, and Troy Robertson and Alex Adams each had three kills as well for the Raptors. The inability to side-out hurt Bard, as BC got the serve back just 39 percent of the time (29-73) Wednesday.

Vassar College will finish its regular season on Saturday, hosting The Sage Colleges and York College (NY) for a non-conference tri-match in the Athletics and Fitness Center. VC will take on Sage at 11 a.m. in the early match of the day, which will be preceded by Senior Day festivities. Later in the day, Sage will battle York at 1 p.m. with the Brewers entertaining York at 3 p.m. to close the afternoon.