Men's volleyball successful in tourney

by: katie kerr
Sports Editor

The St. Ambrose men’s volleyball team may be in the off season, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t working hard.

The Fighting Bee’s season doesn’t start until January, but the team had their first tournament this past Saturday at University of Iowa’s volleyball invite.

The team battled their way to the Championship beating Iowa State 2-0 and Minnesota 2-0.

They lost one game on their way to the top against Iowa 0-2.

The team overcame their loss and made their way to the playoffs where they beat University of Chicago 2-0 and Northern Illinois University 2-0, which catapulted them to the championship against the University of Illinois.

The Fighting Bees maintained a small lead in the first match but were ultimately overturned in the last couple points of the game.

The second match started off as a grueling point-for-point battle until the University of Illinois gained a small lead which led them to their victory.

"It was such a gut-wrenching game and we played so well", senior captain Kevin Lenart said. "It was a tough loss but we played really well overall during the whole tournament."

The men’s volleyball team has added 14 freshman players to the team this year, which led to a division of varsity and junior varsity teams.

In addition to the change of the teams’ makeup, they have been moved into a new conference.

The MAMVIC East division will cause much more traveling for the team this year.

The team is optimistic about improving their losing record from last year's season.

"We’re really excited about all of our new players," Lenart said. "Our season is going to be very interesting since we get to play a bunch of new teams."