EMU's volleyball men earned a split in their conference-opening road trip to Pennsylvania this weekend.  Despite a sweep of Thiel on Saturday, the Royals come home wanting another chance after letting a match against national power Juniata slip through their fingers on Friday.

Eastern Mennonite is now 4-5 overall and 1-1 in the Continental Volleyball Conference.  They step back out of the CVC for a tri-match Wednesday at Lancaster Bible College, playing host LBC and Wilson.

Juniata 3, EMU 1
The men fell behind in the opener before steadily getting in front and winning, 25-22.  Juniata had an 8-0 run in the second to get in front 19-14 but the Royals scored five straight to tie it at 19-19.  EMU flipped in front and served for set points two different times before Juniata got the edge.  The Eagles finally got the win on their seventh try at set point, 32-30.

That seemed to take the wind out of EMU's sails, as Juniata took the next two, 25-17 and 25-14.

Scott Brigham (Montpelier, Va./Patrick Henry) finished with 13 kills and four service aces.  William Ragland (North Chesterfield, Va./Thomas Dale) swatted nine kills on 14 attempts while Travis Abele (Mechanicsville, Va./Lee-Davis) added nine more.  Christian Taylor (Henrico, Va./Deep Run) had 38 set assists.

Micah Buller (Richmond, Va./Douglas Freeman) picked up nine digs while Dan Lutz (Greencastle, Pa./Greencastle-Antrim) and RJ Ocampo (Virginia Beach, Va./First Colonial) each made three blocks.

Matt Visinko led Juniata with 18 kills.

EMU 3, Thiel 0
The Royals needed a marathon start to open their sweep of the Tomcats.  After trailing 18-15, EMU flipped ahead 24-22.  Three straight attack errors gave Thiel set point, which the Royals successfully fended off three different times.  Finally a kill from Brigham followed by a double block from Taylor and Joe Spriggs (Chester, Va./Thomas Dale) closed the door on a 30-28 win.

Both teams had runs early in the second set before EMU caught fire on an 8-2 finish to win, 25-19.  The men nearly gave up a six-point lead late in the third, but Spriggs had a solo stuff to finish off the win, 25-20.

Ragland set his career high with 14 kills in the sweep.  Brigham added 11.  Abele had eight kills with 10 digs, while Lutz charted seven kills, three service aces and three blocks.  Taylor racked up 36 assists to go with four blocks.  Spriggs had three stuffs.

Cody Patterson led Thiel with 11 kills.