The Lancaster Bible College men's volleyball team wasted no time entering the win column, downing the Knights of Arcadia University in five sets. Better yet, the win happened to be in front of the home crowd here at the Horst Athletic Center. Lancaster Bible moves to 1-0 overall while Arcadia moves to 0-1 overall.
 
How It Happened: Senior Elijah Herb opened his last year with the Chargers with back-to-back kills giving the Chargers an early 2-0 lead. The Knights responded though with an attack of their own, bringing the deficit within one, a common theme for much of the night. The Chargers rattled off several points in a row throughout the first set, but the Knights were not going to back down, tying the score multiple times. That was until the 22^nd point when the Chargers scored four in a row off two kills from Hunter Davis and two service aces from Elijah Herb to seal the first set. Herb and Davis will be a duo to keep an eye on this year.
 
The second and third set of the night were an identical script of the first set except the Knights overcame a Charger lead in the second set at the 13^th point and went on to win the set and tie the match at 1-1. The Chargers started with the lead again in the third set and didn't give it up, that was until back-to-back Knight kills gave them a scary 25-24 lead. With the match advantage on the line, Herb stepped up and managed to score the last five points for the Chargers, giving them a 29-27 third set win.
 
With momentum on their side, the Knights stepped to the challenge and rattled off eleven straight points to take an early 11-0 lead. The Chargers tried to get something going offensively, but the Knights' lead proved to be too much, and they went on to steal the fourth set 25-9.
 
With the season opener on the line for both programs, the Chargers found themselves down 6-3 after several strong attacks by the Knights. The Chargers proceeded to score four straight points, giving them their first lead of the fifth set, a key turning point in the game. From there, the teams traded points one after another until a service error and a Davis kill put the Chargers up 13-11. After trading another round of attacks, Herb stepped up to the plate once again and called game, tallying his 19^th kill of the game for the senior to seal the five-set win for the Chargers.
 
By the Numbers: The Chargers registered 49 kills, six service aces, and a monster 13 blocks… the Knights had 52 kills, 12 aces, and 6 blocks… Herb tallied a game-high 19 kills to go along with four service aces… Hunter Davis filled the stat sheet with 11 kills, a game-high 7 blocks, and one service ace… Sophomore Dawson Forney added nine kills and seven blocks to the mix… Freshman Christian Herr set up an impressive 45 assists in his first game as a Charger and fellow freshman Jake Rotelle had 10 digs for the night… Ahn and Abraham led the knights with 12 and 11 kills respectively.

Information to Know: The Chargers have now won their season opener in their last four seasons and back-to-back openers that were won in five sets... Christian Herr's 45 assists were the most in a season-opening match for the Chargers since the 2017 season... Elijah Herb's 19 kills were the most in a season-opener since the 2018 season.
 
Up Next: The Chargers will hit the road for the first time this season this Saturday, January 21^st as they take on nationally ranked Southern Virginia. That game is slated for 5:00 p.m.