For the second year in a row, The Master's men's volleyball team has won the GSAC Championship Tournament.
The No. 1-seeded Mustangs defeated the No. 2-seed Vanguard Lions 25-19, 25-15, 25-13 in The MacArthur Center Saturday.
"The guys played really, really well," said TMU Head Coach
Jared Goldberg. "There were two areas that really stood out [today]... We served very well and we played defense very well. Vanguard was not getting any easy kills, we were touching a lot of balls, we were transitioning well and we were point scoring."
The Master's hit .363 in the match, above their season average of .343, with 37 kills against eight errors. By contrast, the Lions hit .132 with 22 kills and 13 errors. And while Vanguard had the edge in blocks (6-5), TMU had the big advantage in aces (11-3).
Isaac Seltzer had a game-high 12 kills with
Cole Oliver getting 10 kills out of his 15 total attacks with no errors.
Patrick Paragas, the GSAC Player of the Year, dished 32 assists for the Mustangs, while
Mason Mullins led the defense with three blocks.Â
"A lot of things were going our way, as they have most of the year when we've been playing at home," Goldberg said. "That team [Vanguard] is still a very good team and there is a reasonable chance we are going to run into them one more time, and that will be on a neutral floor, not a home floor. And they will be ready to compete, there is no question about that."
With the GSAC Tournament win, TMU will receive an automatic bid to the NAIA National Championship Tournament, which begins April 30 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Mustangs will likely be the No. 1 seed in the tournament. Vanguard, ranked No. 2 in the nation behind the Mustangs, will likely get an at-large berth to the national tournament as well.
"At the end of the day, I am happy that we have not just our starters, but more than seven guys ready to go and playing well at the end of the year," Goldberg said. "And that depth I feel is something that we didn't necessarily have last year and it showed at the end. When we ran into an injury late, we didn't really have the depth. This year, we've got more guys who can play at a high level, and hopefully that pays off when it comes down to you've got to win four matches in five days at nationals to win it all."
