Team suffers loss despite high hopes

March began with high hopes for the men's volleyball club team as it hosted the Hoosier-Illini Classic on March 1. \nThe team was coming off three- straight match wins and said it did not expect anything short of a fifth- straight Hoosier-Illini Classic championship win. \nThe team played pool play matches Saturday against the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Wittenberg University and Eckerd. \nJunior and club president Chris Reilly said the team's performance this weekend was overall good and they served well, played good team defense and did not play down to the other teams.\n"We play every point like it's a championship point, and I think that is the most important thing we took out of today," Reilly said. \nThe team was recently ranked No. 1 in the nation, according to the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association ratings. Reilly said the team is completely satisfied with how it's been playing in terms of potential.\nReilly was not the only one excited to talk about the team's overall effort in Saturday's pool play.\nJunior Topher Soya said Saturday's play prepared the team for Sunday's tournament. Soya was also excited everyone on the team got to play, which doesn't always happen. Soya went on to say he enjoyed having the tournament at IU. He said the HPER is a big gym area, which is good because it can host a lot of teams. \n"It is challenging to try to run the tournament and play at the same time because we have to worry about concessions, we have to worry about the set up, we have to worry about the all star game, reffing assignments, and playing ourselves," Soya said. \nSenior and club secretary Jeremy Levy said the team needs to work as a team for the upcoming matches. \n"I know how good we can really be as long as we stick together and we stay focused throughout every match," Levy said. "If we continue to do that, we're really a lethal team. It's gonna be hard to stop us." \nLevy said in volleyball it's most important to have teamwork because you rely on all the players on the floor. In the Eckerd match Sunday, Levy said senior Jeff Foott really contributed a lot.\n"Jeff has the ability to be one of the best middle blockers in the country," Levy said. "When he's on, he's absolutely impossible to stop. It was really nice to see him step up during that match and take over."\nFinally Levy said he felt the team did well Saturday overall, and they were the No.1 seed going into Sunday. \nBut the excitement and energy the Hoosiers displayed Saturday didn't help because the team was upset in the semifinals for the second year in a row to Lakeland College. \nIU defeated James Madison University in its first match of the day, but failed to get over the hump as it lost to Lakeland 23-25, 30-28, and 17-19 in three hard-fought battles. \nThe Hoosiers' next tournament is Friday and Saturday at the Great Western Shootout in Las Vegas.