March 1, 2023 – That's eight straight wins for (RV) Loras College men's volleyball as a 3-1 win on Wednesday night over Augustana College gives the Duhawks a 1-0 start in College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) play.

The Duhawks (11-1, 1-0 CCIW) have now won four straight matches over the Vikings (8-5, 0-2 CCIW) after holding them to a negative attacking percentage in three of the four sets. Despite a slip-up in the second set, the Duhawks dominated most stat categories as they held a 48-23 advantage in kills and a 7-1 advantage in blocks.

Loras sailed past Augustana in the first set as it racked up three separate scoring runs of four points or more, including a 6-0 run to finish the set at 25-11. Senior hitter Dorian Fiorenza had four kills total in the opening frame with two coming in the final run at the end of the set.

The Vikings responded to their opening-set drumming with a stellar second set that saw them control the pace from start to finish. Augustana totaled 23 kills in the match, and 13 of them came in the second set as they led by as many as eight in the frame.

Loras trailed 22-16 in the later stages, but managed to make it interesting with an 8-2 run that closed the gap to two, but a kill for Augie's Zach Moreano finished it for the Vikings as they evened the score.

Augustana's fun stopped there as the Vikings totaled just three more kills over the final two sets and couldn't keep up with the Duhawks. Of the Vikings 13 points in the third set, 11 came from Loras errors (8 service errors). Even with those miscues, the Duhawks were stout once play got rolling as a .368 attacking percentage led to a 25-13 win.

The fourth set played out smoothly again as Fiorenza led the way and racked up four kills in the set while junior Tyler Kratochvil and sophomore Corey Mayotte each added three as the Duhawks prevailed 25-16, securing their first CCIW win of the year.

Mayotte, the CCIW Hitter of the Week from last week, edged out Fiorenza for the game-high kill total with 15, while Fiorenza settled for second with 14. Fiorenza led the way with 17 points as he added two block assists, two assists, and two service aces to his line.

Senior setter Joe Horn played the entirety of the match and tallied 37 assists on Loras' 47 kills while graduate student middle blocker Patrick Mahoney was big up front, compiling three solo blocks and four block assists.

Loras gets right back to action tomorrow, Thursday March 2, when it hosts Milwaukee School of Engineering at 7 P.M.