On yet another career night for freshman
Nolan Flexen,
Isaac Seltzer and
Matthew Hamm, No- 5-ranked The Master's men's volleyball team defeated No. 8 William Penn University in a five-set thriller Wednesday in The MacArthur Center.
And yet, it was the senior,
Brett Norkus, who ultimately won the match for the Mustangs 26-16, 25-22, 22-25, 23-25, 18-16.
"What a finish," said TMU Head Coach
Jared Goldberg. "At the end of the day,
Brett Norkus came up with some big blocks. Three of the last seven points he got from blocks, and that won us the game."
And while it was the block that won it for the Mustangs (11-4, 4-3 GSAC), it was not what got them to early set victories. A team that averages more than two blocks per set could only get three blocks through the first four sets, helping William Penn finish with  a .385 hitting percentage.
But it was the young guns who hit even better.
Flexen finished with a career-high 31 kills, Seltzer a career-high 15 and Hamm a career-high 57 assists. It added up to The Master's, already leading the nation in hitting percentage, hitting .500 as a team.
"Obviously
Nolan Flexen had a remarkable night," Goldberg said. "He got really hot pretty quickly."
Flexen had 16 kills and committed no errors in the first two sets of the match.
"The match-ups changed and they got some bigger blocks on him to slow him down," Goldberg continued. "But he finished really efficient."
Braden Van Groningen finished with 13 kills,
Will Avera had 10, Norkus led the team with six blocks, and
Diego Perez put in a season-high 19 digs as the libero.
The Master's will now travel to Atherton, Calif. where they will first face Aquinas (MI) in a non-conference match on Friday night followed by a GSAC match with the Menlo Oaks Saturday afternoon.
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