Box Score by Doug Page
HARTSVILLE, S.C. – Paced by a team-high 14 kills from junior Aleksa Brkovic and season-high 11 kills from junior Nick Leary, the Barton College Bulldogs men's volleyball team pushed its winning streak to 10 matches with a 3-1 victory (25-19, 27-25, 18-25, 25-21) against Coker College on Tuesday.
Barton (15-6) rallied to win the fourth set against the Cobras after recording just five kills and committing six attack errors in the third set. BC hit .478 as a team in the fourth set and tallied 12 kills compared to just one attack error. Coker (10-8) would hit .129 as a team in the match but tried to make the most 21 service errors by the Bulldogs in the match.
Leary hit .556 for BC and finished with 11 kills on 18 attempts while adding a pair of aces and six block assists. Brkovic notched 14 kills for a second-straight match while adding three aces and eight digs for Barton. Junior Vasilis Mandilaris recorded a career-high 15 digs for the Bulldogs, while his brother Angelos Mandilaris tallied 12 kills, five digs, and five block assists. Redshirt sophomore Oscar Fiorentino recorded a match-high 34 assists for BC to go along with five digs, three kills, and one solo block.
Gabriel Castro delivered a match-high 15 kills for the Cobras, while Joao Victor Santos added 14 kills, seven digs, and three aces for Coker. Stephan Porras tallied eight kills while tallying a team-high 11 digs for the Cobras. Aleksa Bijelic recorded a team-high 30 assists to go along with three kills and five digs.
Barton recorded eight of the first-10 points in the opening set as A. Mandilaris gave the Bulldogs an 8-2 edge following a kill. The Bulldogs would force the Cobras to use a timeout following a service error and attack error that allowed the Bulldogs to increase their lead to 12-4. Leary and V. Mandilaris teamed-up to give BC an 18-7 lead on the heels of consecutive kills.
The Cobras responded in a big way, rattling off six consecutive points to trim Barton's lead to 18-13 and forcing the Bulldogs to use a timeout in the process. Both sides would trade each of the next 13 points as Barton secured a 1-0 lead in the match with a 25-19 victory in the set after an attack error by Santos.
BC had to battle back from an early 4-0 deficit in the second set as Santos delivered a pair of aces for Coker during the run. Barton cut the deficit to 7-6 before the Cobras used a 3-0 run to up their lead to 10-6. The Bulldogs trailed in the set until an ace from Leary knotted the score 19-19. Coker took a quick 22-20 edge before BC tied things yet again at 22-22.
The Cobras looked like they would even the match 1-1 with a 24-22 lead in the set but see BC use a 3-0 run to take a 25-24 advantage. A kill from Leary coupled with a ball handling error by Bijelic secured a 27-25 victory in the set and a 2-0 lead in the match for BC.
Battling to knot the third set at 5-5 after consecutive aces from Brkovic, the Cobras used a 5-0 rally to take a 10-5 edge. Coker's lead would increase to 16-9 in the set before BC started a 4-0 run to trim the Cobras lead to 16-13. Holding a 23-18 lead, Coker rallied to record the next two points needed to secure the 25-18 victory and make it a 2-1 match.
Consecutive attack errors by Santos put the Cobras behind 4-2 in the fourth set but Coker would answer with a 5-0 run to take a 7-4 lead. Following a timeout, BC used a 4-0 rally of its own to take back the lead at 8-7. Both sides traded the lead on several occasions through the middle of the set until Coker opened a 20-18 lead after a kill from Santos. The Bulldogs countered with a 5-0 run to take a 23-20 lead and momentum in the set. Coker trimmed the deficit to 23-21 before an attack error by the Cobras followed by an ace from Brkovic sealed the 25-21 victory and 3-1 win in the match for Barton.
Barton returns home for the first time since Feb. 24 as the Bulldogs open a three-game homestand beginning with North Greenville on Mar. 23 at 7 p.m.
