LORETTO, Pa. (Feb. 11, 2011) - The Saint Francis men's volleyball team rebounded from a 3-0 setback against George Mason to post their first sweep of the season, downing EIVA Tait rival Princeton 3-0 (31-29, 25-17, 28-26) at DeGol Arena.

The Red Flash improve to 4-4 overall, 1-2 in the EIVA Tait.  Princeton falls to 1-5, 0-2 in the EIVA Tait.  The Red Flash will next host conference opponent Rutgers-Newark on Feb. 12.

After struggling early against George Mason one week ago, Saint Francis head coach Michael Rumbaugh said he was happy to see his team start fast and close out the Tigers.

"It's very nice to see us take our first win in the Tait," said Rumbaugh.  "We really improved this week on starting fast.  We were a bit streaky and played well in spurts, now we just need to learn how to defend leads."

"Overall, though, I'm glad that once we took the first two sets, we were able to finish it out," said Rumbaugh.  "It's such a tight league this year, we could really be facing tiebreakers based on sets won."

The Red Flash serve set the tone for the first set, as the Tigers struggled to base the aggressive SFU serves.  The Flash jumped out to a 7-3 lead, with Adam Roche (Cochranton, Pa./Cochranton) opening the run with a kill and Logan Patterson adding one as punctuation.  SFU would lead throughout the beginning of the set, but Princeton righted the ship and took a 17-16 lead that eventually ballooned to 23-20.  However, the Flash got two kills and a block from Chad Martson (Whitehall, PA/Whitehall) (along with John Skarupa (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegehny)) to tie the score at 23.  The set teetered back and forth until Martson forced set point at 30-29 with a kill, and the combination of Alex Kane (York, Pa./West York) and Skarupa iced it 31-29.

Comparatively speaking, the second set was a briskly played affair.  It would start out evenly, but SFU took a 6-5 lead on a bad set from Princeton and never again relinquished the lead.  Kane poured on five kills and the Red Flash hit .348 in taking the second set 25-17.

In the third set, Saint Francis opened on an 8-3 run that ended on a Skarupa kill, but the Tigers slowly chipped away until tying it for the first time at 19-19.  It would be back and forth the rest of the way until Patterson forced set point on a kill; a Princeton error would seal the set 28-26 and the match 3-0.

The Red Flash were led in kills by Alex Kane (York, Pa./West York), who recorded 14 put-aways and hit .323 for the match.  Logan Patterson also reached double digits, notching 10 kills and hitting .412.  Ryan Williams (Pittsburgh, Pa./Montour) registered 41 assists for an average of 13.67/set.  John Wappler (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegheny), who currently leads the nation in digs/set, inflated his average with 16 digs (5.33/set), giving him double-digit digs in six straight matches and 15+ digs in four of his last six.