Saints stop Knights in three

Published 12:00 am Thursday, October 6, 2005

Nansemond-Suffolk’s boys’ volleyball team, in their final non-conference tune up of their schedule, put a stop to a four-match losing streak Tuesday at home with a three-game sweep over Peninsula Catholic (25-14, 29-27, 25-21). Though PC is a fellow TCIS school, the teams’ first battles are not counted as conference games, only their second.

With the first game knotted at eight, the Saints’ put together the first big run of the evening, running off eight straight points on Patrick Clark’s serve, with Clark serving two aces during the rally.

The Saints closed out game one with ease, and had control of game two up until, with NSA ahead 18-13, the Knights rallied to tie the game at 19. PC registered five of their ten total blocks in the second game, making things difficult on NSA’s main hitter, Matt Hamlet.

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Late in the game, Hamlet, with Clark setting him, regained his stroke at just the right moment. One Clark-to-Hamlet kill saved a PC game point at 25-24 PC. Another PC game point was saved via a Knights’ error. Then Clark and Hamlet combined on back-to-back points to give NSA a game point, which was then won to put a long game two in NSA’s column.

Behind three Harrison Nelms aces, NSA got out to a 9-3 lead in game three.

The Knights charged back to take a 15-13 lead following six straight PC points.

A Knights’ serving error, followed by a Bennett Bynum kill and a Kyle Whedbee ace, regained the NSA lead at 20-17.

Back-to-back Hamlet kills, his 10th and 11th of the evening, took points 24 and 25 to wrap up the Saints’ sweep.

Clark led the Saints in assists and aces with 10 and four respectively.

Brandon Whedbee added seven kills and Bynum had six assists, four of which came in the final game.

NSA (3-4) starts off on their intra-conference schedule this evening at Cape Henry. The Dolphins handed the Saints a hard-fought five-game loss last week on NSA’s home floor.

andrew.giermak@suffolknewsherald.com