Tigers dominate, eliminate Lawrence Tech in pool play opener

Georgetown came into Wednesday's NAIA Tournament Pool Play opener full of confidence off another Mid-South Conference title. The confidence was also high given the Tigers were taking on a Lawrence Tech team whom GC had crushed, 3-0, in the regular season at Davis-Reid Alumni Gym. The venue was different on this occasion, but the result was the same as Georgetown took down Lawrence Tech, 3-0, to win the opener and eliminate the Blue Devils from the tournament in match that only took 1 hour, 12 minutes to play.

The start of set 1 proved a feeling-out process at the teams got acclimated to each other and a neutral court in Cedar Rapids. The first eight points of the opener were split evenly. Michal Bak swung the first momentum to Georgetown with a kill from Finn Heinemann that gave GC a 5-4 lead and started a 6-1 run. The Tigers got a kill from Ryan Gunn, an ace from Krzysztof Kowalski and 3 errors from the Blue Devils to surge ahead. The duo combined for the next 3 kills to keep Lawrence Tech at bay. With the lead at 14-10, Georgetown gladly accepted 3 more Blue Devil errors to push the lead to 7 and force Lawrence Tech to call a timeout to regroup. The decision didn't slow Georgetown down, particularly Ryan Gunn. The MSC Player of the Year tallied 5 kills the rest of the set as Georgetown took the opener, 25-17. In total, Gunn finished the 1st set with 10 kills and hitting a staggering .833.

Set 2 proved much tighter throughout with each team taking turns with the lead and momentum. The first true run for Georgetown came with the set tied at 11. Tyree Wesley gave GC the lead off a feed from Finn Heinemann. The kill started a 7-3 run with kills from Adam Szewinski, Krzysztof Kowalski, Ryan Gunn, and Michal Bak during that pushed the GC edge to 18-14. Lawrence Tech got 2 points back but then committed 2 more errors to put Georgetown up 4 once more at 20-16. The Blue Devils took a timeout to gather and adjust. They got within 2 at 23-21 but no closer and thanks to another serve error at the end, Georgetown was handed a 25-22 set win to go up 2-0.

The third was also tight early as the teams split the first 10 points. From there, Georgetown dropped the hammer. Adam Szewinski gave Georgetown the lead, which put Krzysztof Kowalski on serve on a run that would see Georgetown surge into an 11-5 lead. With the score at 12-7, Georgetown decided enough was enough and put together a mini-run of 4 straight thanks to kills from Ryan Gunn and Tyree Wesley. Lawrence Tech used both of its timeouts during these runs to stop the bleeding but couldn't pull it off. The Blue Devils got within 17-11, but after another Kowalski kill, the Blue Devils were there own worst enemy again as they committed 3 straight attack errors to give Georgetown a 21-11 lead. Sean Bohler finished off the sweep as Georgetown cruised to a 25-13 win in the third.

The Tigers were dominant in all facets on this day. The defense held Lawrence Tech to a .148 hitting clip and forced 19 attack errors from the Blue Devils. The front line finished with 13 total blocks, including 5 block assists from Adam Szewinski. Offensively, the Tigers got better with every set, culminating in the dominant third, in which Georgetown hit .609, compared to .083 for the opponent. For the match, the Tigers hit .453 and committed just 9 attack errors against 48 kills.

Ryan Gunn showed out with 16 kills and just 1 error for a hitting percentage of .652, while adding 6 digs. After a slow start, Krzysztof Kowalski came out strong over the final 2 sets to finish with 14 kills, while hitting .379. Finn Heinemann moved the offense with ease, finishing with 38 assists, 4 kills and 9 digs.

With the win, the Tigers now face #2 Vanguard in the Pool B finale. The winner wins the pool and goes to the semifinals. The loser sees its season end. First serve on Thursday is set for 2:00pm ET.