Springfield, Ohio – For the second-straight year, a team turned the double in the Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League. Wittenberg, which shared the league's regular-season co-championship, beat Calvin in five sets for the tournament title and its accompanying automatic berth in the NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship. The set scores were 18-25, 31-29, 22-25, 25-16 and 15-9. The Division III men's field will be announced this Monday, April 13 at 10:00a ET.
Calvin started strong with a 25-18 win in set one. Daniel Rua provided much of the offense with five kills, including the set-decider. Ezekiel Jalan and Owen Wise combined for 11 assists. Set 2 was a battle of wills that Wittenberg eventually won, 31-29. Both schools had set points during the back-and-forth. Harrison Mitchell and Eli Halverson upped their kills totals to nine and eight, respectively, and were hitting at .421 and .571 after the second set. The momentum went back the Knights' way with a 25-22, hard-fought third-set win. Rua, again, had the winner at set point, upping his match-kills total to a team-high 13. Brady Gudauskas also starred all afternoon for Calvin and put up 12 kills through three sets.
For the first time all weekend, a match went to a fourth set as both Friday semifinals were 3-0 sweeps. Wittenberg established itself early, jumping out to a 7-1 lead. Mitchell had kills on two of those points. The closest Calvin could get was a five-point deficit at 18-13, but the Tigers ran off four-straight points to essetianly kill off any chance of a comeback. Reese Monnin's kill at 24-16 sent the match to the fifth set.
Trailing 8-7 at the side change, Wittenberg took the next four points and a decided 11-8 advantage. That momentum continued to an 8-1 closing-out of the match; the winner coming on a Calvin attack error that was caused by Zach Newton's block.
Mitchell was chosen the tournament MVP. He had a team-high 18 kills on 38 attacks (.368 hitting percentage). Halverson also earned a spot on the all-tournament unit with 15 kills and a .382 hitting percentage. Jake Downs, who had a team-leading 17 digs, was Witt's third all-tournament team honoree. For Calvin, Rua and Gabe Laughlin were chosen as tourney all-stars. Rua tied for the team lead with 14 kills and had a .323 hitting percentage. Laughlin, a grad student, had nine kills and four blocks. The other two all-tournament spots went to Trine's Xander Ikusz, who had 24 assists in the semis against Calvin, and Baldwin Wallace's Tyler Schunck, who had a team-high 12 kills against Wittenberg yesterday.
MCVL Tournament Champions
2026 > Wittenberg
2025 > Mount Union
2024 > Trine
2023 > Baldwin Wallace
2022 > Mount Union
2021 > Fontbonne *
2020 > No tournament (COVID 19)
2019 > Fontbonne *
2018 > Carthage *
2017 > Dominican, Ill. *
2016 > Carthage *
2015 > Carthage *
* = No longer member of league