The Royals had a disappointing end to their hosting of the CVC East Division Weekend, dropping a pair of matches on Saturday.  The men are now 1-2 in the jumbled CVC East, tied with Cairn.  Juniata and Thiel are each 2-1, while Stevenson sits in the middle at 1-1.

Eastern Mennonite wraps up their first half of conference play with a road date at Stevenson on Tuesday.

No. 3 Juniata 3, EMU 0
The Royals got better as the match with Juniata went along, after dropping a 25-13 decision in game one.  The volleyball men got within 19-18 in game two, before the Eagles closed on a 6-2 run to win 25-20.

EMU led 19-16 in game three after a kill from Kyle Storc (Westerville, OH/Bishop Watterson), but Juniata stormed back and finally jumped back in front 22-21.  The Royals jumped back in front and twice served for game point before the Eagles scored three in row to steal the sealer, 27-25.

Storc led the way with eight kills while Jesse Reist (Lancaster, PA/JP McCaskey East) had seven.  John Grove (Glen Allen, VA/Deep Run) and Marc Lovell (Newport News, VA/Menchville) each had six kills.  Grove led the defensive net play with four blocks.

John Barry (Columbus, OH/Worthington Kilbourne) had 33 set assists.  Reist had a team best six digs while Storc landed three aces.

Thiel 3, EMU 0
After twice dropping non-conference matches at Thiel, the Royals were eager to get the win which mattered in CVC play.  But after dropping a close 25-22 score in game one, the men wore out and lost by 25-18 and 25-10 tallies.

Grove and Lovell each had eight kills, while Greg Knight (Chesapeake, VA/Hickory) added seven.  Barry had 24 assists.  Grove again had four block assists, with Lovell knocking down three.

Lovell also had a great match in the back row, notching a team high 10 digs.

Eastern Mennonite's men are now 12-7 overall.  They have eight matches left in the regular season, with five being CVC contests.