No. 6 UC Irvine Beats Concordia, 3-1 For Fifth Straight Victory

Wednesday, January 24

Irvine, CA

7:00 PM

UC Irvine

7-1

Concordia

2-2

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
UCI	25	25	15	25	3
Concordia, Irvine	13	18	25	13	1

No. 6 UC Irvine Beats Concordia, 3-1 For Fifth Straight Victory

January 24, 2018 | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

By: Stacey Shackleford

IRVINE, Calif. – No. 6 UC Irvine beat Concordia 3-1 (25-13, 25-18, 15-25, 25-13) at CU Arena Wednesday evening to extend its winning streak to five.

UC Irvine (7-1) was led by Karl Apfelbach with 15 kills and Joel Schneidmiller with 12, which matches his career-high. The reigning Big West Freshman of the Week also had three block assists. Middle blocker Scott Stadick recorded nine kills and four blocks, while outside hitter JB Kam fired a career-high three aces to go with seven kills. Libero David Parker matched his season-high with a match-best 13 digs. Setter Dante Chakravorti added 38 set assists and eight digs.

Raymond Barsemian was most of Concordia's offense with 17 kills and three aces. The Eagles (2-2) out-blocked UCI, 9.5-8.0, but hit .088 (33-23-113).

Concordia struggled out of the gate, partly because of two UCI blocks and the Anteaters would hold an early 7-0 lead in the first set. The Anteaters hit .526 and would go on to win the set 25-13. Karl Apfelbach was dominant, hitting .750 (6-0-8).

The Anteaters continued to roll, taking the first three points of the second set. A kill by Joel Schneidmiller and a solo block by Stadick pushed the margin to 7-3. The Eagles would close to 13-11 on an ace and again at 14-12, but a kill by Apfelbach, a CUI attack that sailed out and a block by Matthew Younggren and Dante Chakravorti would move the cushion back to 17-12. A late 4-0 run which included three consecutive Anteater kills, two by JB Kam, gave UCI set point 24-18. Following a Concordia timeout, Apfelbach fired an ace to end the set 25-18.

It was Concordia's turn to start quickly with the help of five Anteater attack errors, 6-1. It didn't get much better the rest of the way as UCI hit -.167 (6-11-30). Concordia wasn't much better at .111, but would take the set 25-15.

UCI got back on track in the fourth set, leading 5-2 on a Schneidmiller kill then 7-4 on back-to-back blocks, one by Stadick and one by Schneidmiller and Younggren. UCI would score seven in a row, including two kills by Stadick to put the Anteaters up 19-9. The Anteaters would win 25-13.

UCI will battle No. 5 BYU Friday and Saturday (Jan. 26&27) at the Bren Events Center. First serve at 7:00 p.m.

NOTES: Schneidmiller has two double-figure kill matches, both a career-high 12 kills…Kam had three previous aces before unloading three against the Eagles…It's the sixth time this season Apfelbach has recorded double-figure kills and sixth time he has lead the team in kills this season…Concordia's 13 points in the first and fourth set, matched the opponents low for the season.