SPRINGFIELD, Ohio – The Carthage College men's volleyball team won their season opener at Wittenberg University's Jim Colman Invitation, defeating the host Tigers in four sets, 3-1 [25-18, 22-25, 25-19, 25-]
 
The win moves the #3 Red Men to 1-0 on the season, while Wittenberg opens at 0-1.
 
"Nice to start the year with a win but a lot to improve on," said head coach LJ Marx after the win.  "Evan, Braeden, Matt and Matt did what we hope to see all year long.  Our serving was not good tonight so it will be something that has to get cleaned up starting tomorrow with two tough matches."
 
The Red Men and Tigers exchanged the opening two sets before Carthage grabbed control of the match with a third set win.  In the fourth, after trailing by three early, 7-4, the Red Men went on a 9-2 run to take a 13-9 lead before holding on for the victory in four sets.
 
For the match the Red Men hit .260 with 44 kills to 18 attack errors and, while being able to take advantage of the Tigers' 27 errors and 37 kills for a .090 attack.
 
Evan Walsh, a 2018 First Team All-American, led the Red Men with 14 kills in the win along with a match-high ten digs.  Braeden Waumans and Matt Slivinski finished with 11 kills each, with Waumans rattling off a match and career-high four aces.  Matt Reinsel, Carthage's three-time All-America setter finished with 37 assists in the win.  Rounding out the Carthage leaders, Parker Connolly had a team-high .417 attack with five kills on 12 attempts and no errors and added a match-high five blocks.
 
The Red Men will return to action on Saturday in Springfield with a pair of matches, starting at 9:00 a.m.  Carthage will open the day with Lancaster Bible in the morning, followed by an AVCA Top-15 matchup with #12 Marymount University at 1:00 p.m. EST.