The Aquinas men's volleyball team, which are receiving national votes, traveled down the road to Cornerstone to take on the #9 Cougars of Saint Xavier in a neutral non-conference matchup Thursday night (Feb. 4). The Saints fell short in four sets by scores of 18-25, 20-25, 25-23, and 31-33.
 
Aquinas dropped the first two sets before battling back taking the third set by two points. The Saints were slow to start the fourth as they got down eight points to the Cougars. AQ fought back to tie the match at 24 points a piece.
 
AQ and Saint Xavier had seven ties from that point on but Aquinas wasn't able to grab the advantage. The Cougars snatched the win in the fourth set by a score of 33-31, maintaining their undefeated record of 6-0 overall. The loss moves Aquinas to 1-3 overall. 
 
The Saints were outperformed by the Cougars offensively as the Cougars hit .277 and totaled 61 team kills to AQ's .210 percentage and 51 kills. Saint Xavier edged out Aquinas in assists (52-49), digs (53-49), and service aces (5-3). The Saints grabbed the advantage in blocks tallying nine team blocks to six for the Cougars.
 
Aquinas was led in kills by Julian Armendano who hit a .225 percentage and totaled a match-high 15 kills. Armendano also tallied six digs and had a pair of block assists. Robert Valerio hit .370 for the Saints and finished with 13 kills and a pair of block assists. Daniel Littleton recorded seven kills on the night and helped AQ defensively tallying five block assists.
 
Gavin Jonker finished with 12 kills and added three digs and three block assists for the Saints. Leo-Paul Rousseau dished out 32 assists, had a pair of block assists, and added five digs. Josh Evers recorded 13 digs for AQ and Kelsey Yogi tallied nine. Matthew Richmond totaled 14 assists and added three digs in tonight's match. 
 
AQ is back in action on Saturday (Feb. 6) as they travel to Mount Vernon, Ohio to take on Mount Vernon Nazarene. The WHAC matchup is set to begin at 5:00 PM.