The Benedictine University men's volleyball team opened the 2015 home portion of their schedule on Wednesday night, hosting a trimatch with teams from Loras College and Milwaukee School of Engineering.

Benedictine (2-2) defeated Loras (1-3) in the opening match (28-26, 25-16, 25-22). Eric Tarnow led all players with 13 kills while Jeremy Villarreal recorded 10 kills and had six digs. Lewis Stein had nine kills in the match. Defensively, Markus Riemer led Benu with 12 digs and had 41 assists. Ian Thompson tallied 11 digs.

As a team, BenU out-hit the Duhawks 46-33 and recorded 46 digs with eight team blocks including four assists from Stein.

In their second match, BenU faced MSOE (3-1) who they had lost to last Friday in four sets. The Eagles were looking for revenge, jumping out to an early first set lead. After MSOE battled back to tie it at 23, the BenU defense came alive, tallying two blocks from Sterling Glover and Stein to win 28-26.

The second set was more of the same with both teams trading kills. Three unforced Benedictine errors gave the Raiders a 21-18 lead and they never looked back, taking the second set 25-21.

In the third set, MSOE scored five straight points early on and kept a two-point lead for the entire match, eventually winning 25-21.

A Jake Moran service ace sparked the BenU fire to take a 13-8 fourth set lead. The Raiders didn't give up, coming within two before four straight Moran service points gave BenU a five point lead as they went on to win 25-22 to force a fifth set.

Benedictine trailed by one point for the entire first half of the fifth set and could not stop the MSOE offense, falling 14-11.

Glover led BenU with 10 kills while Tarnow recorded eight kills. Thompson led the BenU defense with 15 digs while Zach Loeding and Riemer each recorded 2.5 total blocks.

The Benedictine men's volleyball team is back in action on Friday, January 23 when they host Saint Xavier University at 7:30 pm in the Rice Center.