St. Francis stays hot, tops Lyons

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It has been a pretty good week for St. Francis.

Forty-eight hours after defeating top-ranked Providence, the No. 7 Spartans whipped visiting Lyons 25-21, 25-21 on Wednesday.

Joey Murnane had nine kills and junior setter Mike Signeri added 19 assists and two kills for the winners.

“I feel that, win or lose, ending the regular season with Providence and Lyons always prepares us for the state tournament,” Signeri said. “We are a really experienced team and right now we’re playing well and gelling well together.”

Andrew Gulik had 11 kills and three blocks and Justas Pagojus added seven kills and three aces for Lyons (27-7). Five service errors in Game 2 prevented the visitors from mounting any kind of comeback.

“We certainly can play better,” Lyons coach Joann Pyritz said. “I don’t know how we scored 21 points with as many serves that we missed. But St. Francis also took us to task. They executed well and had some snappy hits.”

Lyons did amass seven blocks in Game 2, but Signeri kept moving the ball around until he found a mismatch.

“At times it seemed like we’d block four in a row, and at other times it seemed like our blocks were completely ineffective,” Pyritz said.

Jeff Dixon added five kills and Bob Vonderhaar and Aaron Metzler each had two for St. Francis (31-3).

“Mike has the ability to set everything,” St. Francis coach Mike Lynch said. “No matter what we call, he has the ability to set it.”