Box Score by Doug Page
BRISTOL, TENN. – A 3-1 (25-17, 25-20, 21-25, 25-15) victory for the King University Tornado halted a 13-match winning streak for the Barton College Bulldogs on Friday night in Conference Carolinas men's volleyball action.
Barton (18-7, 14-1) now finds itself tied for the top spot in the league standings along with the Tornado with one regular season match left to play. The Bulldogs hit just .147 in the match despite getting 14 kills each from junior Aleksa Brkovic and sophomore Vasilis Mandilaris. King (18-5, 14-1) hit over .350 in three of its four sets in the match including a .550 clip in the fourth set.
Brkovic tallied 14 kills for BC while adding three aces and four digs in the match. A. Mandilaris notched 14 kills for Barton while adding seven digs. Junior Vasilis Mandilaris tallied eight kills, five digs, and one solo block for the Bulldogs, while sophomore Tim Wiese added a match-high eight digs. Redshirt sophomore Oscar Fiorentino tallied a team-high 36 assists to go along with six digs and two block assists.
Kiel Bell paced the Tornado with a match-high 17 kills while hitting .483 for King. Bell also added eight digs, one solo block, and one ace for the Tornado. Jeff Sprayberry notched 15 kills in the match to go along with six digs and a pair of block assists. Nick Drooker guided the Tornado offense with a match-high 47 assists along with two aces and seven digs.
The Tornado opened an 8-4 lead in the opening set before the Bulldogs would respond with a 3-1 run to trim the deficit to 9-7. King tallied back-to-back points to take an 11-7 lead and force BC to use an early timeout. King increased its lead to 17-10 in the set on the heels of a 3-0 rally as Barton would use its final timeout of the set. The Bulldogs would gain some momentum by using a 3-0 rally to cut the gap to 17-13.
King stretched the lead to 20-13 in the set following an ace from Sean Luhmann and kill by Bell. Trailing 24-16 in the set, A. Mandilaris delivered a kill for BC as the Bulldogs looked to start a run to close the gap in the set. Adrian Besson sealed the opening-set victory for the Tornado with a kill to give King a 1-0 lead in the match.
Both sides handed the lead over early in the second set as A. Mandilaris tallied a kill that would knot the score 7-7. That kill would spark a 3-0 run for the Bulldogs as BC upped its lead in the set to 10-7. The Tornado wouldn't go away without a fight and would later even the score and take a 15-13 lead on the heels of a 4-0 run. After seeing its lead cut to 23-20, the Tornado tallied consecutive points off attack errors by Barton to secure the 25-20 victory in the set and take a 2-0 lead in the match.
Looking to show some fight, the Bulldogs opened the third set with a 4-1 run. A quick 3-0 rally would up the lead to 7-2 for Barton before a service error ended the run. Barton increased its advantage to 12-6 in the set before King used a 2-0 spurt to cut the gap to 12-8. The Tornado rallied midway through the set to cut the gap to 15-14 and later knot the score 16-16. Following a timeout by BC, the Bulldogs pieced together a 3-0 run to gain a 19-16 edge. Holding onto a 21-20 lead, the Bulldogs used 3-0 run to pull within a point of extending the match. A kill from Bell would extend the set another point until V. Mandilaris recorded a kill to give BC a 25-21 victory and force a fourth set.
The Tornado showed poise early in the fourth set, using a 5-0 run to take a 5-1 lead over BC. A 3-0 run would up the King advantage to 8-2 following a block from Bell and Besson. Barton trimmed the gap to 8-4 after consecutive kills from V. Mandilaris and Brkovic. The big run for the Tornado would come as Bell recorded a kill to start a stretch of King winning eight of the next 10 points to increase its lead to 16-6.
Consecutive attack errors by BC would up the King advantage to 19-8 before the Bulldogs rallied to trim the deficit to 20-11. Both sides would trade each of the next eight points en route to Sprayberry delivering the winning kill as King recorded a 25-15 victory in the set and a 3-1 triumph in the match.
Barton closes the regular-season with a matchup against Lees-McRae College on Saturday at 12 p.m. The Bulldogs will look to complete the sweep of the Bobcats after defeating LMC 3-0 inside Wilson Gym on Feb. 23.
