ALTOONA, Pa. – After a quick overnight trip to central Pennsylvania, the Hilbert College men's volleyball team returned to Hamburg with two losses to two different Penn State University satellite campuses on March 2.

Adam Weaver finished the day with 29 kills (4.14 kills/set) and three solo blocks. David Mellerski added 11 kills and 20 digs, one more dig than Ryan Ratajczak's 19.  Passing for 8.57 assists per game, Adam Heftka posted 60 assists on the day.

Hilbert opened with a three-set loss to Altoona (25-21.25-13.25-16) at 10 am.  The game was bumped-up one hour earlier than originally scheduled in an effort to assist the visiting teams to depart Altoona prior to the pending snow/ice storm.  After the 11-11 tie in the first set, Hilbert gave up three-straight points off hitting errors pushing the momentum into Altoona's favor.  Hilbert battled back from a 19-13 deficit and cut the score to 2 twice (20-18 and 23-21).  The Lions closed out the set with back-to-back kills.  In set two, Altoona took a 6-0 advantage, held off the Hawks who battled back to an 11-7 score before they jumped back on top again 25-13. In the final set, Hilbert took control early but Altoona snuck back to knot the score at 5-5 and then they crept away.  Somehow after a Hawks timeout, the score went from 6-5 to 10-5 (without explanation) and that separation was too much for Hilbert to overcome.

Out of the Hawks 90 attempts at the net, only 26 turned into kills (.100) and they were credited with almost the same number of digs – 28. 

Weaver finished with eight kills, and Korey Schwab and Andrew Wolbert added five each.  Heftka assisted 21 times while David Mellerski led the Hawks with 10 digs.  Andrew Wolbert earned a solo block against Altoona.

After a brief Behrend warm-up session which allowed the Hawks to regain their footing, the second match of the day turned into a challenging four-set game.   Behrend captured a 25-20 first set win, which was followed up with a 25-22 Hilbert victory.  The Lions from Erie, Pa, made it to 25 points in the next two sets first while limiting Hilbert to 19 points and 16 points.

Behrend controlled the net hitting .415 percent with nine solo and ten assisted blocks.  Hilbert connected for 49 kills, with 21 arriving off the arm of Adam Weaver.  Heftka assisted on 39 kills with eight others credited to David Mellerski.  Ryan Ratajczak posted 12 digs as Mellerski added 10.

Hilbert (4-18) has a week off before their next challenging weekend of play.  They return to United Volleyball Conference play when they travel to Elmira College March 8, 9 for the two-day cross-over weekend.  Hilbert will play #10 MIT on Saturday and then face Vassar and #1 New Paltz Sunday.