UWO WIns Midwest 10 Championship (3-26-06)
The UW-Oshkosh men's volleyball team captured its fourth consecutive Midwest 10 Conference championship by first going 9-0 in the regular season and then winning the conference tournament title. Both events were held on Saturday (March 25) in Milwaukee.
Previously the Titans won the regular season title in 2003 and 2004 and captured the conference tournament title in 2003 and 2005. UW-Oshkosh has never finished lower than third in the eight years it has been a member of the Midwest 10 Conference.
UW-Oshkosh (31-0), ranked #1 in the latest NIRSA Division I poll, started the morning by defeating Illinois State University 25-16, 25-22, #23 ranked Northern Illinois University 25-18, 25-18 and #9 ranked Marquette University 25-16, 18-25, 15-9.
Highlighting the morning session were Matt Lewin (Sr. - Cudahy) with seven kills on eight errorless attempts and Andrew Sederberg (Sr. - Racine) with four service aces and seven digs against the Redbirds. Jeff Thomas (Sr. - Madison) added six digs and Kurt Breier (Jr. - Kimberly) tallied three service aces against the Huskies and Mike Semrad (Sr. - Waukesha) led the Titans with 10 kills on 13 attempts against the Golden Eagles.
After wrapping up the top seed entering the single elimination playoffs, UW-Oshkosh faced the University of Illinois-Chicago in the quarterfinals and won 25-17, 25-21 to advance to the semifinals for the eighth consecutive year. James Bradley (So. - Racine) led the team with eight kills and Nate Malewiski (Jr. - New Franken) collected six kills on nine attempts. Andrew Sederberg had four service aces and ran the offense with 27 assists.
In the semifinals against the University of Notre Dame the Titans hit an astonishing .667 in dismantling the Irish 25-18, 25-16. Lewin had seven kills on nine errorless attempts and Semrad had six kills on eight attempts. Breier added three service aces and Andrew Sederberg dished off 19 assists.
In the championship match the Titans were pushed to the limit by #2 ranked Lakeland College. After losing the first game 25-21, UW-Oshkosh responded by taking the next two games 25-16, 15-11 to improve to 5-0 over the Muskies this season.
Semrad dominated the match at the net slamming down 12 kills on 15 attempts and adding three blocks. Thomas added nine kills, four digs and three solos blocks and Bradley chipped in seven kills. Andrew Sederberg again led the team with 31 assists and added three service aces.
Unlike the previous match against Lakeland College where the Muskies held an early advantage in the deciding game, UW-Oshkosh stormed out 6-2, 8-4 and 12-7. Lakeland College closed to within 13-10 but UW-Oshkosh held on as the Titans hit .625 in the third game, including a perfect four kills from Semrad,
For the day, UW-Oshkosh's middle blockers shined as they hit a combined .528 on 73 kills. "The edge we have right now against most teams is our ability to get our middle blockers the ball in transition and off of serve receive," said head coach Brian Schaefer. "Of course everybody knows how good Andrew is, but Aaron Wayne (So. - Waukesha) and Nathan Sederberg (So. - Racine) are passing and playing great defense right now to put most teams on the early defensive."
"This is the most fun I have seen our team have on the court in a long time," added assistant coach Rick Kreiter. "Playing hard at all moments of a match sometimes becomes an issue for us but today we worked together as a team and did not care about individual highlights, just the team win."
Last season Andrew Sederberg and Thomas were named All-Midwest 10 Conference first team and Semrad received an honorable mention nod. Brian Schaefer was also named the Midwest 10 Conference coach-of-the-year.
"It would be hard to keep all three of those players off of the first team this season," stated Schaefer. "Unfortunately not everybody on our team will get the recognition they deserve. You take our starting line-up and all of them would make an impact on any other team in the conference. There are just not enough votes to go around."
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