LAKE WALES, Fla. - The Warner Men's Volleyball team hosted the Mighty Oaks of Oakland City University for back-to-back games on Wednesday and Thursday. The two evenly matched programs battled to 5 sets in each match, but the Mighty Oaks were able to get the edge in both matches winning 3 sets to 2 in the pair of non-conference matchups.
Warner and OCU battled in tightly contested matches that saw both teams going back in forth through all 10 sets where it took until the final two sets before either team was able to win consecutive sets. The final set scores of Wednesday's match were 25-27, 25-22, 15-25, 25-21, and 15-13 while Thursday's match sets ended 25-22, 23-25, 26-24, 15-25, and 12-15 in favor of Oakland City. The two matches marked the 3rd and 4th times this season where the Royals have forced 5 sets against an opponent showing the resilience of this Royals team as they continue to battle with their competition as they work towards post-season play.
Romone Rudolph had another strong showing in game 1 leading the Royals in Kills with 13 while tacking on 2 Service Aces and 1 Assisted Block for a team leading 15.5 points.
Meric Akovali lead the Royals in three categories including Service Aces (3), Digs (9), and Assists (39). Akovali accounted for all but 8 of the Royals 47 Assists in the first of two matches with OCU in what was a dominant all-around day for the Senior.
Donovan Winsley had a strong showing at the net recording a team high 5 Blocks, 2 Solo and 3 Assisted, to go along with his 6 Kills for a total of 9.5 points.
Rudolph picked up where he left off in game 2 as he recorded a team high 17 Kills and 3 Blocks, 2 Solo, as well as adding 1 Service Ace for a total of 20.5 points. Akovali had another strong day for the Royals leading the team with 35 Assists with 2 Service Aces, 6 Digs and 2 Kills on Thursday.
Milos Sipragic lead the Royals with 3 Aces and was tied with
KJ Harrison with 10 Digs for the most on the team against the Mighty Oaks.
The Royals will return to Conference Play next weekend when they travel to Marietta, GA for a 3 game AAC POD as they enter the final weeks of the regular season.
Warner Stat Leaders Combined Totals
Kills: Romone Rudolph (30)
Aces: Meric Akovali (5)
Blocks: Donovon Winsley (7)
Assists: Meric Akovali (74)
Digs: KJ Harrison (18)
Up Next:
The Royals will head north to Georgia for another AAC Pod to play Life University on March 19th at 7:00pm, Reinhardt University on March 20th at 4:00pm and Truett McConnell University at 1:00pm.
#GodBlessGoRoyals | #TogetherAsOne
