HOBOKEN, N.J. -- The No. 4 Stevens Institute of Technology men's volleyball team advanced to the Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Final with a four-set win over Stevenson Thursday evening at Canavan Arena.
 
The first two sets played out much like the five-set thriller the teams played five weeks ago in Maryland, with the Mustangs taking the first (25-22) and the Ducks taking the second (25-17), but unlike the regular season matchup where the Ducks rallied from down two sets to one, Stevens closed out Thursday's semifinal with an extended third set win (27-25) before a second 25-17 mark in the fourth.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
The first set featured 17 ties, five lead changes, and neither side holding an advantage greater than three points. After ties at every integer 4-through-11, Stevenson took a 13-11 lead, but the Ducks came right back with the next two, setting off another string of ties that stretched from 13-all to 21-all. Stevenson finally seized some semblance of control with the first three-point run of the night, opening a 24-21 lead before closing out the set two points later. Stevenson (15-10, 5-3 MAC) out-blocked the Ducks 5-1 in the frame and notched two service aces without conceding any.
 
Stevens (24-4, 8-0 MAC) took control early in the second set, taking leads of 5-3, then 7-4, and finally 11-6. Stevenson worked its way back to 12-10, but two more 3-0 runs in a span of nine points extended the margin out to seven, 19-12. The Mustangs did not close within six the rest of the way. Joshua Levandoske, Koby Sherman, and Alex Olcott all had three kills in the set for the Ducks. Stevens also flipped the script from the opening set, out-blocking the Mustangs 2-0 while recording three service aces to Stevenson's two.
 
The back-and-forth evening continued into the third, with the teams tying five times before Stevens took a two-point cushion at 7-5. That cushion grew as high as four at 16-12 and 17-13, but Stevenson rallied back to tie at 21-all. After four additional ties, Tyler Hoke put away a kill and Esteban Schmitt and Carver Weirick teamed up for an assisted block, putting the Ducks up two sets to one.  Sherman notched another eight kills in the set, Levandoske added six, Schmitt had three, and Hoke had two.
 
In the fourth, Stevenson took a 4-2 lead, but conceded the next three points as Stevenson took the first of three one-point cushions before going up 9-7, but the Ducks responded with a dominant, extended closing stretch, taking the next three, nine of the next 12, and 18 of the final 26 points to close out the match. Sherman capped his monster night with another eight kills in the set; Weirick finished the frame with five, including each of the Ducks' final three points.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE

• As a team, the Ducks hit a season-best .478 with 67 kills, their second-highest total of the season, and seven more than they had in any four-set match this year.
• Sherman finished with a season-high 25 kills, just one off his career-high of 26 set back in April of 2022, also in the MAC Semifinal, against Arcadia. He also hit .639, his second-best mark of the season, and added seven digs – another season-high.
• Levandoske finished with a season-high 15 kills, putting him on an even 100 for the season.
• Schmitt made it a trio of season-highs for the Ducks middles/outsides with eight kills on 13 swings
• Sebastian Huyke finished with a career-high 53 assists, seven more than any other match of his Stevens career.

UP NEXT
The Ducks will face the No. 2 seed Messiah, who took down No. 3 seed Misericordia in the MAC Final at Canavan Arena on Saturday, April 12 at 1:00 p.m. Stevens took down Messiah in four sets in Grantham, Pa. on March 19, the only conference loss for the Falcons this season.

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