The UCSC Men's Volleyball team evened their Midwest roadtrip with a pair of 3-1 wins over Mount St. Joseph and Lakeland at the Lakeland College Triangular.

The Banana Slugs improved their record to 7-2.

The first two sets had the teams trading kills and points in splitting the sets. In the third set, UCSC fell behind 10-6 before taking control and finished the set hitting .324 with 16 kills, with seven by Jake Howard.

Howard and Lake Merchen each had 14 kills to lead UCSC. Merchen had a team-high 11 digs.

For the match, the Banana Slugs hit .234, including .271 in the final two sets. MSJ was held to .109. UCSC hit six aces,with Howard and Ryan Mclaughlin serving two each. 

In the second match, UCSC hit .400 in taking the match against the host Muskies. Lakeland won the first set but UCSC stormed back to take the final three in impressive fashion. Merchen had a career-high 24 kills. Evan Kittle surpassed 800 career assists with 46 assists.

The Slugs totalled 13 blocks in holding Lakeland to a .099 hitting percentage. Raymond Cascio and Riley Rutan each compiled 7.0 total blocks.  Cameron Bardeau had 12 of the team's 46 digs.

The Banana Slugs finish their trip with a pair of matches in Milwaukee Sunday against Milwaukee School of Engineering and Benedictine (IL).