NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — The Merrimack men’s volleyball team faced a challenging match against No. 7 BYU at the Sakowich Center on Monday night, ultimately falling in straight sets.
BYU, which recently moved up in the national rankings after winning two matches at the Harvard Invitational, defeated Merrimack with set scores of 25-11, 25-17, and 25-17.
“We’re playing a top-10 team so the guys started a little bit shaky, but we just decided we got to let it rip,” said Merrimack head coach Hayden West-Mather. “We got to go with power. If we’re going to make mistakes, we got to do it really aggressively. So, I think they came into that a little bit more.”
During the third set, Merrimack briefly led 7-6 before BYU regained control. Dallas Birkenbeuel’s kill narrowed BYU’s lead to 21-17 late in the set, but BYU closed out the match by scoring four consecutive points.
Max Tkachev led Merrimack with 14 kills for his second straight double-digit performance. Birkenbeuel added five kills. Other contributors included Reece Lindstrom with 26 assists and three kills; Kyle Standage with eight digs; Nick Tidik with two blocks; and Nathaniel Venegas with one block.
“Our faults beat us at every level so we see that we can hang with these teams — we actually played our best of the weekend today,” West-Mather said. “So, good growth and now we get to go play some more local teams and hopefully get some Ws.”
Merrimack will next host D’Youville on Saturday at 1 p.m.
