Mahwah, NJ: In the opening match of the 2009 Molten Division III Men's Invitational Volleyball Championship, the #2 seeded Ducks of Stevens Institute of Technology swept the #3 seeded Banana Slugs of UC Santa Cruz to advance to the finals of the championship tournament tomorrow at 8pm. The Ducks will face off with the #1 seeded Juniata College at 8:00 pm and host #4 Ramapo will play UC Santa Cruz at 5:30 for third place.

Tomas Bochicchio (Saint James, NY) and Andrew Cranford (Bel Air, MD) each recorded 11 kills to lead the Ducks to the three game (30-24, 30-26, 31-29) sweep over UCSC. The team combined for 42 kills on 91 attempts with 11 errors hitting .341 ahead of the Banana Slugs who hit, .204. UCSC put away six more kills in the match, 48, but tallied 27 hitting errors on 103 attempts. UCSC was led by Brad Sullivan (Saratoga, CA) who recorded 13 kills. Justin Lam (San Francisco, CA) put away 11 of his own and Eric Rowell (Los Gatos, CA) finished the night with 39 assists. Jeff Hogg (Granite Bay, CA) led the defense with seven digs and Alex Schwartz (Glencoe, IL) put down three blocks. The Stevens defense was led with five blocks each from Doug Reger(Flemington, NJ) and Cranford, SteFan PremDas (Hollywood, FL) added four to the mix.

The Ducks took game one, 30-24 after combining for 13 kills on 35 attempts with only three errors (.286). The game remained close, within one point either way, until after a 19-19 tie, the Ducks made a push earning a 21-19 lead to force UC Santa Cruz to take a timeout. Stevens went up 23-20, before a serving error gave a point to Santa Cruz, 23-21. Stevens would outscore UCSC, 7-3 in the final plays to take the game by six. Grobeis put the ball away for game point. Bochicchio led the Ducks with four kills hitting .444 while Grobeis dished out nine assists in the win. PremDas (Hollywood, FL) led the team's defense with four digs and Doug Reger (Flemington, NJ) added two blocks to the game. UCSC was led by Brad Sullivan (Saratoga, CA) with six kills and Eric Rowell (Los Gatos, CA) contributed 14 assists. Six digs from Jeff Hogg (Granite Bay, CA) led the team's defensive game. The Banana Slugs combined for 16 kills with ten errors on 41 attempts (.146).

Fourteen kills were spread across five Ducks for a total of 14 in game two, where Stevens came out on top with a 30-26 victory. The team hit .407 ahead of UCSC, who went 15-29 with eight errors (.241). In the opening points, with Stevens ahead 2-1, the Ducks strung together four points to go up 6-1 at the start. The Banana Slugs outscored Stevens by a slim 5-4 over the next few plays to close the gap, 10-8, forcing Stevens to take a timeout. Out of the timeout, a kill from Reger put the Ducks up 11-8, and Lam answered back with a point of his own to put UCSC again within two, 11-9. Stevens remained with a slight edge until UCSC's Sullivan put the ball away, followed by an error from Stevens, to tie the game at 25. After another tie at 26-26, Joe Trinsey (Wilmington, Del) killed a ball then blocked a ball with Reger and Bochicchio, before PremDas killed a ball and Bochicchio recorded an ace to close out the game with four straight points for the game two win. Grobeis contributed 13 assists and Bochicchio led the way with two defensive digs. Sullivan recorded five kills and Rowell and Lam each recorded four kills for UCSC. Rowell dished out 11 assists and Matt Smiley (Aptos, CA) led the team with three digs.

Stevens walked away with the sweep with a 31-29 game three victory after hitting .345 with 15 total kills, led by Cranford who chipped in five. The two teams battled it out flip-flopping points the entire stretch until a tie at 29-29 before Cranford put away point 30 and an error from UCSC gave the Ducks the win. Bochicchio recorded four kills and Grobeis dished out 12 assists with Bochicchio leading the Ducks with four digs. UCSC recorded 17 kills as a team with nine errors on 33 attempts hitting .242. Alex Schwartz (Glencoe, CA) and Lam each recorded four kills while Rowell contributed 14 assists.

Zach Wanner (Lancaster, PA) led #1 Juniata College with 19 kills and hit .484 in a 3-0 victory over #4 Ramapo College 3-0, (30-20, 30-18, 30-26). Dan Powers (Lancaster, PA) posted ten kills and the Eagles hit .460 in the match.

Senior Tom Kohler (East Brunswick, NJ) produced a team high 16 kills while senior Shane Donohue (Freehold Twp., NJ) recorded 11 kills and six digs in a 3-0 loss to the #1 seeded Eagles of Juniata College. Donohue's three service aces was a match high. Senior setter Jairo Sierra (Fair Lawn, NJ) dished out 34 assists and rookie Paul Konopacki (Monore Twp., NJ) and senior TC Elsasser (Barnegat, NJ) combined for eight assisted blocks (four each). Sophomore Kevin McNerney (Bayonne, NJ) posted seven digs leading the team's defense.

Wanner and Powers put the Eagles up 2-0 in game one before the Roadrunners got on the board with a kill by Donohue. Powers killed a ball from Matt Werle (Meadville, PA) before Donohue killed a ball to make it 3-2. Donohue tied the game on a service ace, 3-3. Kohler picked up his first kill of the game off a pass from Sierra to tie the game at seven. With the game tied at eight, the Eagles would go on a three point run, 11-8, before the Elsasser would post a kill. Wanner added a kill for Juniata to up 12-9, as the Eagles started to pull away. Ramapo and Juniata traded points until 15-12 when the Eagles got two kills by Powers, and a Ramapo error put Juniata up 17-13. The Eagles cruised to an easy 30-20 win led by Wanner and Powers with six kills each.

In game two Ramapo opened 10-6 on a kill from Konopacki before Juniata scored two straight points on back to back kills by Wanner. The Eagles scored five straight points taking a 20-13 lead before Donohue stopped the streak with a kill, 20-14. Juniata ended the game scoring the last seven points to take game two, 30-18.

In game three, the Roadrunners led 10-8 on an Eagle attack error with their biggest lead coming at 12-9 with a kill by Donohue. Juniata rallied back to knot the score at 17 on a kill by Evan Halteman (Perkionenville, PA). The match saw five ties, the last coming at 22-22 on a kill by Kohler. Two Ramapo attack errors put the Eagles up 24-22 and Juniata followed with four straight points to take a 27-23 lead. Wanner ended the match on his sixth kill, 30-26.

Werle and Halteman each notched eight kills in the win while Werle recorded a match high 36 assists and added four assisted blocks.