For the fourth year in a row, The Master's men's volleyball team has won the GSAC Championship, this time with a 3-set sweep over No. 2-seed OUAZ Spirit Saturday in The MacArthur Center.
The win avenges the loss from just one week ago to the Spirit in the final match of the regular season.
The Mustangs (22-1), the No. 1 seed in the tournament and now No. 2-ranked team in the country, defeated the Spirit 25-14, 25-18, 25-18 in front of a near capacity crowd.
And once again it was the serve that set the tone of the match as Master's had 11 aces compared to the Spirit's one.
"Immediately we were putting pressure on our opponents at a really high level," said TMU Head Coach
Jared Goldberg. "That is something we are going to need to keep throughout the rest of the year as we go to nationals. I know we are very comfortable serving in our own gym, but we are going to have to keep that same pressure when we are in a different environment too."
In the 5-set loss to OUAZ last week, Master's lost the first set, something the team had not done all season. In Saturday's championship match, TMU jumped out to a 4-0 lead to start the first set and never looked back. They improved the lead to five points and then went on a 6-1 run to take command at 17-9. They closed out the set on an 8-4 run to grab the 11-point first set win.
After OUAZ started the second set up 3-2, the Mustangs once again wrestled control back, going on a 6-2 run to got up by three. After the Spirit fought back to tie it at 9-9, TMU once again went on another run, this time 13-5 to go up by eight. The teams traded points with the Mustangs grabbing the 7-point victory.
Again the Spirit kept the score tight at the start of the third. After it was tied 5-5, Master's got the next four points and maintained that 4-point cushion until closing out the set on another 6-2 run to win by seven and clinch the championship.
"We are trying to play our best volleyball now," Goldberg said. "And that means taking care of business in a lot of different areas. We had talked about avenging that loss and playing for a championship, but at the end of the day it's all about playing our best and we were pretty close there."
Isaac Seltzer led The Master's with 19 kills.
Trace Oswald had eight kills but also added five more aces to stretch his program record to 50 aces on the season.
Preston Schmidt also had five aces and a game-high 12 digs.
Matthew Hamm added 34 assists and led the team to a .405 hitting percentage.
Five seniors played their final match in The MacArthur Center, including both Seltzer and Hamm who spent their entire college career in a Mustangs' uniform.
"Both of them came in four years ago and started as freshman," Goldberg said. "And they have been a core pillar of this program continuing to grow. In their freshman year was our first year that we were a top team nationally, and so they are going to go down as some of the winningest guys in our program's history because they have been a part of four really good teams and I'd like to really be able to finish strong with them."
Seltzer and Hamm are 94-9 in their four years at The Master's with four conference championships and a national title.
"It's been an amazing four years," said Seltzer, who goes out as the GSAC Player of the Year . "I couldn't have asked for a better team, a better coach or better teammates. It's really sad to think that this was the last one (in The MacArthur Center)."
Seltzer is No. 1 in program history with 954 kills. Hamm is No. 1 all time with 2,046 assists and moved into the No. 2 spot behind Patrick Paragas with 773 assists for the season.
"It's definitely a surreal feeling knowing this was the last game I will ever play here," said Hamm, who was selected to his second All-GSAC team this season. "I'm just so thankful reflecting on the last four years I've had at TMU. I've been blessed so much and this team has been blessed so much and we're just super excited for what's ahead for us. We know our job is not finished, so we're going to get ready to go to Iowa."
The win clinches a spot in the NAIA National Championship tournament that begins Tuesday, April 28 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Master's, as well as 11 other teams, will find out on Tuesday at 9 a.m. what seed they will be when the NAIA airs their selection show on You Tube.
