Box Score by Kevin Buczek
WILSON, N.C.-Junior Zach McCalla's 24th kill on match-point ended a dramatic 3-2 Conference Carolinas men's volleyball victory for host Barton College over local rival University of Mount Olive on Wednesday night in the Dog House.
The five-set triumph by scores of 25-19, 18-25, 27-25, 19-25 and 18-16 is the Bulldogs fifth consecutive league win.
Barton (11-15 overall, 7-6 conf.) has moved into a tie for fourth place in the conference standings with Limestone College with one regular season match left. Barton and Limestone will meet in the quarterfinals of the 2014 Conference Carolinas Tournament but which team becomes the fourth seed to host the fifth seed will depend on this upcoming weekends regular-season finales for both squads. The first round will be played on Wednesday, April 9.
The Bulldogs can control their own destiny in clinching the fourth seed with a home win against Pfeiffer University on Saturday at 7 p.m. The match will also serve as Senior Night for BC's lone senior Tyler Malpass. Barton secures the higher seed because it holds the tiebreaker the Saints having won both regular season meetings. Barton could lose its season finale and still get the host seed if Limestone were to lose its final regular season match on the road at Lees-McRae College Friday.
McCalla ripped five of his match-high 24 spikes in the shortened fifth set to miss his school record by one. McCalla hit .364 while freshman Chad Stanback Jr. netted 17 kills at a staggering .429 clip.
Barton hit over .200 for a fifth straight match as the gutsy Bulldogs improved to 5-3 both at home and in fifth sets.
Freshman Federico Pagliara orchestrated the hot-hitting Royal Blue and White attack with 53 assists. Freshman Jonathan Novoa-Miralles was a third Bulldog in double figures with 11 kills.
Stanback's 17 spikes and Pagliara's 53 helpers both tied season-best marks for the two rookies.
The league's top hitter in senior Angel Dache nearly single-handedly kept the Trojans in the match with 23 kills at a blistering rate of .512.
UMO had its seven-match league win streak snapped in its regular-season finale aside from attacking with a .342 hitting percentage. The Trojans enter postseason play with records of 13-11 overall and 10-4 in the conference.
Barton won the matches first four points including a pair of aces by Pagliara to set the tone of the match. The Bulldogs led comfortably throughout the period by hitting .394 including eight kills by McCalla.
The Trojans responded with a strong second set slowing pulling away to the seven-point win. Dache and senior Steven Cruse each supplied four blasts for the visitors.
Mount Olive served for set point in the third set twice at 24-23 and 25-24 but a McCalla kill and a Trojans service error tied the set for a 13th and 14th times. A block by McCalla and Malpass rallied the Bulldogs in front before another McCalla spike put the Bulldogs back ahead, 2-1, with the hard-fought 27-25 win.
Cruse knocked down six kills and Dache tallied five more in the fourth as Mount Olive was able to respond for second time by never trailing in the period before winning by six.
The race to 15 points in the fifth featured 11 ties. UMO held a slim 8-7 edge when the two squads changed end of the court and then pull out 12-9 by winning four of the next six points. However, the Bulldogs barked back with a 5-1 rally to serve for match-point at 14-13. Stanback capped the run with a kill.
The Trojans, who were 6-0 all-time against the young Barton program, made BC earn its first win against the reigning regular season champs by siding out the Bulldogs first three attempts at match point until two consecutive kills by McCalla finally put away the preseason favorites.
Pagliara and Novoa-Miralles led the Bulldogs with eight digs apiece while junior libero Michael McMahon made seven lifts. Malpass notched block assists on six of BC's eight blocks.
Dache completed a double-double for the Trojans with a match-high 10 digs. Cruse accumulated 14 kills.
