The Carthage College men's volleyball team (23-8, 10-0 Continental Volleyball Conference West Division), ranked fourth in the April 15 American Volleyball Coaches Association NCAA Division III poll, lost to top-seeded and No. 1 Springfield College (26-7), 3-0, on Saturday, April 26 in the semifinals of the NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship at Juniata College's Kennedy Sports Center in Huntingdon, Pa.   The Pride's winning set scores over the Red Men were 25-16, 25-23 and 25-21.
 
Carthage opened play at the championship on Friday, April 25 with 3-2 win over No. 7 Rivier University (29-7) in the quarterfinals.  Fifth-seeded Carthage's winning set scores over the fourth-seeded Raiders were 23-25, 25-21, 25-19, 25-27 and 15-11.  Springfield swept Endicott College (19-13), 3-0, in Friday's first quarterfinal match with winning set scores of 25-9, 25-10 and 25-21. 
 
The championship got underway with a pair of play-in matches on Saturday, April 19.  Ninth-seeded Endicott College (19-12) knocked off eighth-seeded and No. 6 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (24-7), 3-0, while seventh-seeded and No. 5 the Stevens Institute of Technology (23-7) defeated 10th-seeded and No. 15 Baruch College (27-11), 3-1.  Endicott's winning set scores over MIT were 25-15, 25-20 and 27-25, and Stevens' winning scores over Baruch were 17-25, 17-25, 25-21 and 25-22.

On the other side of the bracket, second-seeded and No. 2 the State University of New York-New Paltz (28-3) swept the Stevens Institute of Technology (23-8) in a quarterfinal match with winning set scores of 25-21, 25-20 and 25-19, with third-seeded and No. 3 Juniata (28-4) outlasting sixth-seeded and No. 9 Kean University (26-8), 3-2, in the final quarterfinal with winning scores of 21-25, 25-18, 26-28, 25-17 and 15-6.  Juniata (29-4) defeated SUNY-New Paltz (28-4), 3-1, in Saturday's second semifinal match with winning scores of 18-25, 25-16, 25-19 and 25-22.  Springfield (27-7) swept Juniata (29-5), 3-0, in the Sunday, April 27 championship match with winnning scores of 25-20, 25-21 and 25-21.

Carthage qualified for the inaugural NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship in 2012 and reached the title match before losing to Springfield in Springfield, Mass.  The Red Men did not qualify for last year's championship in Cambridge, Mass.
 
In the loss to Springfield, the Pride opened up an 18-8 lead in the first set.  The Red Men got no closer than seven points, en route to a nine-point loss, 25-16.  Carthage had a 15-10 lead in the second set.  Still leading by five, 17-12, the Red Men saw their lead slip to one point, 18-17.  Carthage had a three-point lead, 23-20, but Springfield ran off three-straight points to tie the set, 23-23.  An attack error by Carthage's Jeff Beach and a kill by the Pride's Jimmy O'Leary gave Springfield a 25-23 win.  In the third-and-final set, the Pride broke a 10-10 tie to take 12-10 lead that they never relinquished.  Springfield led by as much as four points on three occasions and went on to win by four, 25-21.
 
Luis Vega led Springfield with 17 kills and a .339 attack percentage.  Sean Zuvich had nine kills and nine digs, and Jimmy O'Leary eight kills with three block solos and two block assists.  Jim Schultz (Sr., Salem, Wis./Westosha Central) led the Red Men with 11 kills, nine digs and two block assists, while setter Connor Wexter (Sr., New Lenox, Ill./Lincoln-Way Central), who was named to the all-tournament team, averaged 8.67 assists per set.

"Set two was kind of like two years ago," said Carthage coach L.J. Marx, "when the second set also got away from us in the national-championship match against Springfield.  It was a turning point.  Springfield is the defending champion, and they're advancing for a reason.  They're very good, they put the pressure on you, and they don't give you much room to breathe.  Somebody will knock them off at some point, but until then, they have that aura about them, and it allows everyone else to think that way.  They've been there, they've done it before, and they're going to be tough to beat.  We played well—it just wasn't quite enough."