Men’s Volleyball Set for Senior Day Sunday Against Augie

Titans will honor program’s first senior class

3/22/2024 3:40:00 PM

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - The Illinois Wesleyan University men's volleyball team will host Augustana College for a College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin match Sunday, March 24. Action is set to begin at 3 p.m. inside Shirk Center, and will serve as the Titans' first-ever Senior Day.

The Titans will honor nine seniors, Bradley Benson (Lemont, Ill.-Lemont Township), Michael Eastman (Chicago, Ill.-Saint Ignatius), Blake McGlashan-Bryant (Hawthorne, Calif.-Mira Costa), KJ Johnson (Saint John, Ind.-Marian Catholic), Adam Blackmore (Geneva, Ill.-Geneva), Michael Anderson (Plainfield, Ill.-Plainfield Central), Julian Perez (Orland Park, Ill.-Carl Sandburg), Alec Mucha (Geneva, Ill.-Geneva), Javier Romano (Prospect Heights, Ill.-Wheeling), along with Vic Gomez, who was a three-year member of the team that graduated early in December, prior to the start of the match.

Illinois Wesleyan (10-11, 1-5 CCIW) enters the contest off a three-set loss to fourth-ranked Loras College Wednesday night, March 20. Eastman led the Green and White with nine kills, while junior Vince DiCosola (Aurora, Ill.-Oswego East) posted team-highs of 15 assists and four digs.

Eastman leads IWU with 209 kills on a .266 attack percentage, averaging 3.22 kills per set. Freshman Bryce Williams (Chicago, Ill.-Whitney M. Young) is second with 149 kills, an average of 2.37 per set, while junior Jake Kougan (Frankfort, Ill.-Lincoln-Way East) is third with 102. Eastman's 23 aces are a team-high, followed by Kougan and Benson with 16 and 13, respectively.

The Titans have seen DiCosola and freshman Brenden Reutter (Frankfort, Ill.-Lincoln-Way East) orchestrate the majority of the offense. DiCosola leads the team with 324 assists, averaging 5.06 per set, while Reutter has 260 for an average of 4.48 assists per set.

Defensively, sophomore Jace Milka (Bolingbrook, Ill.-Plainfield East) leads the Green and White with 173, averaging 2.44 digs per set. Eastman is second with 105, while DiCosola is third with 81. At the net, Kougan leads the Titans with 44 blocks, while Romano closely follows with 40. Perez rounds out the top-three blockers with 30 stuffs on the season.

Illinois Wesleyan and Augie (16-4, 3-3 CCIW) will meet on the court for the eighth time in program history. The Vikings took the most recent meeting in four sets Wednesday, March 6. Williams led the Titans with nine kills, while DiCosola posted a team-best 17 assists, and Eastman finished with team-highs of six digs and three aces. Augustana enters the match riding a sweep over CCIW foe and 11th-ranked North Central College Wednesday, March 20.

A live stream of the match can be accessed by clicking here, while live stats can be found here.

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