Men’s Volleyball season comes to an end in Semi-Finals

Chicago, IL - The Calumet College Men's Volleyball team traveled to St. Xavier on Friday for their Semi-Finals match of the Chicagoland Collegiate Atheltic Conference against the two-seeded Judson Eagles. The Crimson Wave were coming off of a 3-1 win against Olivet Nazarene and had all the energy and momentum going into the match, but the Wave came up just short losing in a five-set thriller 3-2. 

The Crimson Wave battled in each set, going point-for-point against the Eagles, the Wave would have a small lead and the Eagles would quickly return the favor. In the first set, it came down to the final points as Judson had a 24-21 lead when Gianluca Righetto had a kill to give the Crimson Wave a serve. Gustavo Medina went to serve for the Wave and a kill from Pedro Castillo put CCSJ just behind the Eagles' 24-23 lead, but a kill from Judson won it 25-23. The second set was similar to the first, the Crimson Wave and Eagles were separated by just a few points and the Wave couldn't quite catch up as Judson won the set 25-21. 

Putting behind them the first two sets, the Crimson Wave quickly caught up to Judson's early lead and kept within two points of the Eagles to give themselves a chance. The tide turned when the Crimson Wave tied the Eagles at 23-23, then 24-24, then 25-25, and 26-26. The Crimson Wave persisted, and with Jacob Moen serving, Pedro Castillo had two major kills that put the Wave ahead and secured their 28-26 win over Judson and take the match into the 4th set. 

Judson was the first to score in the 4th set, but once the Crimson Wave started going they could not be stopped. The Wave maintained a lead over the Eagles for the entire match and never settled, winning their second set 25-20, and forcing a 5th set against the Eagles. The 5th and final set was just as thrilling as the other four. The Eagles took a lead, but the Crimson Wave quickly tied it up 4-4. The rest of the match went point-for-point as the Wave and Eagles battled back and forth. As both teams were tied 14-14 the pressure set in, and CCSJ had a 16-15 lead but that was quickly taken by Judson as they scored three points and took the 18-16 set win and 3-2 match win. 

Pedro Castillo led the Crimson Wave with 27 kills, 11 digs, and 5 blocks in the five sets. Francis Hauze was close behind with 26 kills, 7 digs, and 4 blocks. Jacob Moen had 66 assists with 1 service ace, 11 digs, and 3 blocks. Other big leaders were Steven Gutierrez with 8 blocks, Gianluca Righetto had 11 kills, and Gustavo Medina with 20 digs.

The Crimson Wave finished an impressive first season back going 16-6 overall and 10-5 in the CCAC, averaging 12.78 kills per set with a Hitting Percentage of .279. The Crimson Wave also averaged 12.18 assists per set, 10.27 digs per set, 1.72 blocks per set, and 1.64 service aces per set. 23rd As of April 2nd, several Crimson Wave players and the team were at the top of the NAIA Men's Volleyball statistics.

• CCSJ was 23rd in total kills with 1061, 2nd in kills per set with 12.78, 11th with a Hitting Percentage of .279%, 23rd with 1011 total assists, 1st with 12.18 assists per set, and 14th with 10.27 digs per set. 
• Francis Hauze had the third-highest kills per set in the NAIA with 4.72, was 17th with a Hitting Percentage of.306%, 13th in total kills with 349, and 15th with an average of 0.53 service aces per set.
• Pedro Castillo was 18th in the NAIA with 3.79 kills per set, the third-highest Hitting Percentage in the NAIA with a .369%, 24th in total kills with 303, 61st averaging 1.93 digs per set, 75th with a total of 154 digs, 97th with an average of 0.28 service aces per set, 75th with an average of 1.44 assists per set.
• Jacob Moen was 4th in the NAIA with an average of 10.28 assists per set.
• Gustavo Medina was 29th in the NAIA averaging 2.41 digs per set, 33rd with 200 total digs.
• Ethan Dawson was 47th with an average of 0.37 service aces per set.
• Gianluca Righetto was 88th with an average of 0.29 service aces per set.