River Forest, Ill.-Concordia-Chicago (4-22; 0-16 NACC) faced off against Division St. rival Dominican University (17-10; 12-3 NACC) in their second meeting of the season and the last regular season match of the year. In the first matchup, the Stars came away with a win in straight sets. Much similar to the last meeting Dominican came in nationally ranked. Concordia-Chicago would fall in straight sets once again (8-25, 23-25, 17-25).
Inside the Box Score:
•
Virgilio Rodriguez boasted an impressive .300 hitting percentage in the three sets of play.
•
Matthew Geiser led the way with 15 assists.
• Finally,
Trent Weber paced the defense with eight digs.
Starting off the first set the Cougars had trouble finding their footing. After a quick 6-1 start by Dominican, Concordia-Chicago was forced to call a timeout. Following the timeout CUC found life and rallied along with the Stars with a score of 10-5. The Cougar scoring would halt and the Stars continued to dominate the opening set after a 7-0 run made it 17-5. DU's run would force the Cougars to use their final timeout of set one. Shortly after the timeout the Stars would close out CUC and win the set 25-8.
Moving on to set two Concordia-Chicago tried to find a way to combat the Dominican firepower. Geiser answered the call with an ace that tied up the second set early at 4-4. Although CUC came out firing, a DU run would force the Cougars into their first timeout of the set trailing 9-5. Concordia-Chicago hung tough after the timeout and only trailed 14-13. Back to back kills by
Ricardo Ruiz sprung the Cougars back and tied it up at 17-17. CUC led in the late stages 20-19 and looked to bring home set two. It would go down to the wire but Dominican would outlast the Cougars in set two and take the set 25-23.
Set three opened up similarly to the first. In a blink of an eye DU flew out to a 5-1 lead and gained control early. The Stars would ride the momentum to a 15-9 lead a little over halfway through the set. As they got closer to 25 and a sweep in sets, Dominican distanced themselves further taking set three by a score of 25-17.
Concordia-Chicago closed out the season with a final record of 4-22.
