The Lindenwood men's volleyball team (1-0) opened the season with a 3-0 sweep of Rockhurst (0-1) on Friday night inside Hyland Arena.

MATCH OVERVIEW
Lindenwood won the race to 10 in the opening set with a kill from Owen Walsh and took an early 10-4 lead. The Lions maintained a comfortable lead throughout the stanza and went up by as many as nine following an Ian Schuller ace, making it 18-9. The Hawks pushed back and got the score within five at 21-16, but Lindenwood was able to close out the first frame, 25-19.\

It was a back-and forth battle to begin the second with the score knotted at 6-6 early. Lindenwood settled in and went on a 7-1 run to pull ahead 13-7. Once again, Rockhurst would battle back to get the score within one at 21-20. The Black and Gold would pull away, however, as Brendan Louthain finished off the set with a kill at 25-23, putting Lindenwood up 2-0.

The Lions saved their best hitting set for last, swinging .478 to close out the match. Lindenwood led 10-8 early and was up by a slim 15-13 margin at the media. With Lindenwood up 20-15, the Hawks went on a 5-1 run to pull within one, which forced a Lindenwood timeout. After the timeout, Lindenwood won four of the next five points to win the match 3-0.

Louthain and Schuller each finished the match with double-digit kills, compiling 13 and 11, respectively. For Louthain, the 13 terminations were a career-high along with his .478 hitting percentage.

MATCH LEADERS
Brendan Louthain (13 kills, .478 hitting %, two aces, three digs)
Owen Walsh (eight kills, four blocks)
Lincoln Geist (13 digs, six assists)

QUOTEABLE
"With a new season and multiple new faces out on the court this group went out and played well!," said head coach Joe Kosciw. "There's a lot of nerves and excitement that come into play when you have that first match of the year and a home opener as well. So it was good to see how they would respond with those circumstances, along with playing a team that is making history with their first ever Division 1 match. 

I think early on with non-conference matches we are going to learn a lot about who we are and what we want to become as a team, so that as the season goes into conference play we will be better prepared.

We have things to take away from this to work on, and we have a couple days to do that and prep for a really tough opponent in Long Beach State at home on Wednesday night. But overall, it was a good home opening and season opening match to the season!

UP NEXT
The Lions will host No. 2 Long Beach State on Wednesday, January 15 inside Hyland Arena. First serve is set for 7:00 p.m.